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BALLADS, LYRICS, AND HYMNS. 

BY 

ALICE CARY. 



POPULAR EDITION. 




NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON 

CamSrOrjje: saibcrjittre $«<&. 

1876. 



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M*«l'fc 



Entered according to Act of Congress, m the year 1865. by 

Alice Cart, 

in Uie Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York 



By Transfer 
5 1907 







RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

6TBRTOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

U 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 




O ever true and comfortable mate, 

For whom my love outwore the fleeting red 

Of my young cheeks, nor did one jot abate, 
I pray thee now, as by a dying bed, 

Wait yet a little longer! Hear me tell 

How much my will transcends my feeble powers : 
As one with blind eyes feeling out in flowers 

Their tender hues, or, with no skill to spell 

His poor, poor name, but only makes his mark, 
And guesses at the sunshine in the dark, 

So I have been. A sense of things divine 
Lying broad above the little things I knew, 

The while I made my poems for a sign 
Of the great melodies I felt were true. 



»v APOLOGY. 

Pray thee accept my sad apology, 

Sweet master, mending, as we go along, 
My homely fortunes with a thread of song, 

That all my years harmoniously may run ; 
Less by the tasks accomplished judging me, 

Than by the better things I would have done. 
I would not lose thy gracious company 

Out of my house and heart for all the good 

Besides, that ever comes to womanhood, — 
And this is much : I know what I resign, 
But at that great price I would have thee mine. 




..t-,<^ 






CONTENTS. 



---c-^^caj*^*^ 



BALLADS. 
The Young Soldier . . ' 

"0 winds ! ye are too rough, too rough ! " 
Ruth and I ..... 

Hagen W alder ...... 

"Among the pitfalls in our way" 

Our Schoolmaster ..... 

"The best man should never pass by'' . 

The Gray Swan ...... 

The Washerwoman . ... 

Growing Rich ...... 

"too much joy is sorrowful/' 

Sandy Macleod ...... 

The Picture-Book ..... 

" He spoils his house and throws his pains away " 
A Walk through the Snow 
" The glance that doth my neighbor doubt" 
The Water-B barer ..... 

The Best Judgment ..... 

Hugh Thorndyke ..... 

" Still from the unsatisfying quest " 
Faithless ...... 

"do not look for wrong and evil" — 

My Faded Shawl ..... 

('are ........ 

Old Chums 

"Apart from the woes that are dead and gone," 

The Shoemaker ..... 

To the Wind ...... 

"What comfort, when with clouds of woe" . 
Little Cyrus ...... 



?agt 
3 
8 
9 
12 
14 
15 
18 
19 
22 
25 
26 
27 
29 
31 
32 
34 
35 
43 
46 
48 
49 
51 
52 
60 
01 
63 
64 



69 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



"Our God is love, and that which we miscall" 

Morning .... 

The Summer Storm 

If and If 

"We are the mariners, and God the sea 

An Order for a Picture 

Fifteen and Fifty 

Jenny Dunleatii 

Tricksey's Ring 

Crazy Christopher 

The Ferry of Gallaway 

Revolutionary Story 

"Just here and there with some poor little ray 

"Hope in our hearts doth only stay" • 



Page 

73 

74 

77 

79 

84 

85 

90 

97 

103 

110 

116 

119 

323 

124 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 
Thanksgiving 
The Bridal Veil . 
The Special Darling 
A Dream of the West 
On Seeing a Drowning Moth 
y Good and Evil 
Stroller's Song 
A Lesson 

On Seeing a Wild Bird 
Rich, though Poor 
Sixteen 

Prayer for Light 
The Uncut Leaf 
The Might of Truth 
Counsel . 

The Little Blacksmith 
Two Travellers 
The Blind Traveller 
The Blackbird . 
My Good Angel 
More Life 
Contradictory 



127 
143 
145 
147 
149 
152 
154 
156 
158 
160 
162 
164 
166 
168 
170 
172 
174 
177 
179 
181 
183 
185 



CONTENTS. 



VII 



This is All 
In Vain 

Best, to the Best 
Thorns 
Old Adam 

The Farmer's Daughter 
A Prayer 
Alqne 
Sometimes 
The Sea-Side Cave 
January . 

The Measure of Time 
Idle Fears 
Hints . 

To a Stagnant River 
Counsel 
Latent Life 
How and Where . 
The Felled Tree 
A Dream 
Work 
Comfort 

Faith and Works 
The Rustic Painter 
One of Many 
The Shadow 
The Unwise Choice 
Signs of Grace 
Providence 
The Living Present 
One Dust 

The Weaver's Dream 
Not Now 
^Crags 
Man 

To Solitude 
The Law of Liberty . 
My Creed 
Open Secrets* . 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



The Saddest Sight 
The Bridal Hour 
Idle 



HYMNS. 
The Sure Witness 
Love is Life 
"Thy works, Lord, interpret Thee, 
Time ..... 
Consolation .... 
Sufplication 

"Why should our spirits be opprest 
Whither .... 
Sure Anchor .... 
Remember . . . . 

Lyric . . . . . 

Sunday Morning 

In the Dark .... 
Parting Song 

Mourn Not .... 

The Heaven that's Here 
The Stream of Life . 
Dead and Alive 

Invocation .... 

Life of Life 

Mercies ..... 
Pleasure and Pain- 
Mysteries .... 
Lyric . 

Trust ..... 
All in All .... 
The Pure in Heart 
Unsatisfied .... 
More Life .... 

Light and Darkness 
Substance . • • • 

Life's Mystery 
For S elf-Help .... 



204 
266 
267 



271 
273 

274 
275 
276 
277 
278 
279 
2S0 
232 
284 
285 
287 
289 
291 
293 
295 
296 
298 
300 
302 
303 
305 
307 
308 
310 
312 
314 
316 
318 
320 
322 
324 



CONTENTS. is 

Page 
Dying Hymn ....... 326 

Extremities ........ 327 

Ueke and There ...... , 309 

The Dawn of Peace ..... ,. 330 

Occasional . ...*... U% 



PORTRAIT, on Steel, by Ritchie 

TO THE SPIRIT OF SONG Hochstein iii 

THE YOUNG SOLDIER Herrick 3 

THE GRAY SWAN Fknn 19 

THE WATER-BEARER Bellows 35 

MY FADED SHAWL ..Hillon 52 

LITTLE CYRUS Carey 69 

AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE Granville Perkins 85 

CRAZY CHRISTOPHER Hociistein 110 

THANKSGIVING Hillon 127 

ON SEEING A DROWNING MOTH. . . .Fenn 14< 

THE LITTLE BLACKSMITH J. G. Brown 171 

THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER Wm. Hart 19' 

THE FELLED TREE " " 223 

THE WEAVER'S DREAM Launt Thompson 24b 

THE SURE WITNESS., Hochstein 271 



3Saltati& 




THE YOUNG SOLDIER. 




NTO the house ran Lettice, 

With hair so long and so bright, 
Crying, " Mother ! Johnny has 
'listed I 
He has 'listed into the fight ! " 

" Don't talk so wild, little Lettice ! " 
And she smoothed her darling's 
brow, 
^T is true ! you '11 see — as true 
can bo — 
He told me so just now ! " 



BALLADS. 

44 Ah, that 's a likely story ! 

Why, darling, don't you see, 
If Johnny had 'listed into the war 

He would tell your father and me I * 

44 But he is going to go, mother, 

Whether it 's right or wrong ; 
He is thinking of it all the while, 

And he won't be with us long." 

44 Our Johnny going to go to the war ! " 

44 Ay, ay, and the time is near ; 
He said, when the corn was once in the ground, 

We could n't keep him here ! " 

44 Hush, child ! your brother Johnny 

Meant to give you a fright." 
44 Mother, he '11 go, — I tell you I know 

He 's 'listed into the fight ! 

44 Plucking a rose from the bush, he said, 

Before its leaves were black 
He 'd have a soldier's cap on his head, 

And a knapsack on his back ! " 

44 A dream ! a dream ! little Lettice, 

A wild dream of the night ; 
Go find and fetch your brother in, 

And he will set us right." 



BALLADS. 

So out of the l^ouse ran Lettice, 

Calling near and far, — 
"Johnny, tell me, and tell me true, 

Are you going to go to the war?" 

At last she came and found him 

In the dusty cattle-close, 
Whistling Hail Columbia, 

And beating time with his rose. 

The rose he broke from the bush, when he said, 

Before its leaves were black 
He 'd have a soldier's cap on his head, 

And a knapsack on his back. 

Then all in gay mock-anger, 

He plucked her by the sleeve, 
Saying, "Dear little, sweet little rebel, 

I am going, by your leave ! " 

44 O Johnny ! Johnny ! " low he stooped, 

And kissed her wet cheeks dry, 
And took her golden head in his hands, 

And told her he would not die. 

44 But, Letty, if any^ng happen — 

There won't ! and he spoke more low — 

But if anything should, you must be twice as good 
As you are, to mother, you know! 



BALLADS. 

"Not but thai you are good, Letty, 

As good as you can be ; 
But then you know it might be so, 

You 'd have to be good for me ! " 

So straight to the house they went, his cheeks 

Flushing under his brim ; 
Ana his two broad-shouldered oxen 

Turned their great eyes after him. 

That night in the good old farmstead 

Was many a sob of pain ; 
" O Johnny, stay ! if you go away, 

It will never be home again ! " 

But Time its still sure comfort lent, 

Crawling, crawling past, 
And Johnny's gallant regiment 

Was going to march at last. 

And steadying up her stricken soul, 

The mother turned about, 
Took what wa\ Johnny's from the drawer 

And shook the rose-leaves out ; 

And brought the cap she had^Jined with silk, 

And strapped his knapsack on, 
And her heart, though it bled, was proud as she said, 

" You would hardly know our John ! " 



BALLADS. 

Another year, and the roses 

Were bright on the bush by the door ; 
And into the house ran Lettice, 

Her pale cheeks glad once more. 

" O mother ! news has come to-day ! 

'T is flying all about ; 
Our John's regiment, they say, 

Is all to be mustered out ! 

" O mother, you must buy me a dress, 

And ribbons of blue and buff! 
O what shall we say to make the day 

Merry and mad enough ! 

" The brightest day that ever yet 

The sweet sun looked upon, 
When we shall be dressed in our very best, 

To welcome home our John ! " 

So up and down ran Lettice, 

And all the farmstead runs 
With where he would set his bayonet, 

And where his cap would be hung! 

And the mother put away her look 

Of weary, waiting gloom, 
And a feast was set and the neighbors met 

To welcome Johnny home. 



BALLADS. 

The good old father silent stood, 
With his eager face at the pane, 

And Lettice was out at the door to shout 
When she saw him in the lane. 

And by and by, a soldier 

Came o'er the grassy hill ; 
It was not he they looked to see, 

And every heart stood still. 

He brought them Johnny's knapsack, 

'T was all that he could do, 
And the cap he had worn begrimed and torn, 

With a bullet-hole straight through! 



— ^re^&N^ 2 *^ 



O winds ! ye are too rough, too rough ! 
O Spring ! thou art not long enough 

For sweetness ; and for thee, 
O Love ! thou still must overpass 
Time's low and dark and narrow glass, 

And fill eternity. 



BALLADS. 



RUTH AND I. 

It was not day, and was not night; 
The eve had just begun to light, 

Along the lovely west, 
His golden candles, one by one, 
And girded up with clouds, the sun 

Was sunken to his rest. 

Between the furrows, brown and dry, 
We walked in silence — Ruth and I; 

We two had been, since morn 
Began her tender tunes to beat 
Upon the May-leaves young and sweet, 

Together, planting corn. 

Homeward the evening cattle went 
In patient, slow, full-fed content, 

Led by a rough, strong steer, 
His forehead all with burs thick set, 
His horns of silver tipt with jet, 

And shapeless shadow, near. 
2 



10 BALLADS. 

With timid, half-reluctant grace, 
Like lovers in some favored place, 

The light and darkness met, 
And the air trembled, near and far, 
* With many a little tuneful jar 

Of milk-pans being set. 

We heard the house-maids at their cares, 
Pouring their hearts out unawares 

In some sad poet's ditty, 
And heard the fluttering echoes round 
Reply like souls all softly drowned 

In heavenly love and pity. 

All sights, all sounds in earth and air 
Were of the sweetest ; everywhere 

Ear, eye, and heart were fed ; 
The grass with one small burning flower 
Blushed bright, as if the elves that hour 

Their coats thereon had spread. 

One moment, where we crossed the brook 
Two little sunburnt hands I took, — 

Why did I let them go ? 
I 've been since then in many a land, 
Touched, held, kissed many a fairer hand, 

But none that thrilled me so. 



BALLADS 



n 



Why, when the bliss Heaven for us made 
Is in our very bosoms laid, 

Should we be all unmoved, 
And walk, as now do Ruth and I, 
'Twixt th' world's furrows, brown and dry, 

Unloving and unloved ? 




12 BALLADS. 



HAGEN WALDER. 

The day, with a cold, dead color 

Was rising over the hill, 
When little Hagen Walder 

Went out to grind in th' mill. 

All vainly the light in zigzags 
Fell through the frozen leaves, 

And like a broidery of gold 
Shone on his ragged sleeves. 

No mother had he to brighten 
His cheek with a kiss, and say, 

" 'T is cold for my little Hagen 
To grind in the mill to-day." 

And that was why the north winds 
Seemed all in his path to meet, 

And why the stones were so cruel 
And sharp beneath his feet. 

And that was why he hid his face 

So oft, despite his will, 
Against the necks of the oxen 

That turned the wheel of th' mill. 



BALLADS. 13 

And that was why the tear-drops 

So oft did fall and stand 
Upon their silken coats that were 

As white as a lady's hand. 

So little Hagen Walder 

Looked at the sea and th' sky, 
And wished that he were a salmon, 

In the silver waves to lie ; 

And wished that he were an eagle, 

Away through th' air to soar, 
Where never the groaning mill-wheel 

Might vex him any more : 

And wished that he were a pirate, 

To burn some cottage down, 
And warm himself; or that he wer6 

A market-lad in the town, 

With bowls of bright red strawberries 

Shining on his stall, 
And that some gentle maiden 

Would come and buy them all ! 

So little Hagen Walder 

Passed, as the story says, 
Through dreams, as through a golden gate, 

Into realities. 



14 BALLADS. 

And when the years changed places, 
Like the billows, bright and still, 

In th' ocean, Hagen Walder 
Was the master of the mill. 

And all his bowls of strawberries 
Were not so fine a show 

As are his boys and girls at church 
Sitting in a row ! 



~-cO^)X(»A>=>- 



Among the pitfalls in our way 
The best of us walk blindly ; 

O man, be wary ! watch and pray, 
And judge your brother kindly. 

Help back his teet, if they have slid, 
Nor count him still your debtor; 

Perhaps the very wrong he did 
Has made vourself the better. 



BALLADS. 16 



OUR SCHOOLMASTER. 

We used to think it was so queer 
To see him, in his thin gray hair, 

Sticking our quills behind his ear, 

And straight forgetting they were there. 

We used to think it was so strange 

That he should twist such hair to curls, 

And that his wrinkled cheek should change 
Its color like a bashful girPs. 

Our foolish mirth defied all rule, 
As glances, each of each, we stole, 

The morning that he wore to school 
A rose-bud in his button-hole. 

And very sagely we agreed 

That such a dunce was never known — 
Fifty! and trying still to read 

Love-verses with a tender tone ! 

No joyous smile would ever stir 
Our sober looks, we often said, 

If we were but a Schoolmaster, 

And had, withal, his old white head* 



16 BALLADS. 

One day we cut his knotty staff 
Nearly in two, and each and all 

Of us declared that we should laugh 
To see it break and let him fall. 

Upon his old pine desk we drew 

His picture — pitiful to see, 
Wrinkled and bald — half false, half true, 

And wrote beneath it, Twenty-three ! 

Next day came eight o'clock and nine, 
But he came not : our pulses' quick 

With play, we said it would be fine 
If the old Schoolmaster were sick. 

And still the beech-trees bear the scars 
Of wounds which we that morning made, 

Cutting their silvery bark to stars 

Whereon to count the games we played. 

At last, as tired as we could be, 
Upon a clay-bank, strangely still, 

We sat down in a row to see 

His worn-out hat come up the hill. 

J T was hanging up at home — a quill 
Notched down, and sticking in the band, 
• And leaned against his arm-chair, still 
His staff was waiting for his hand. 



BALLADS. 17 

Across his feet his threadbare coat 
Was lying, stuffed with many a roll 

Of " copy-plates," and, sad to note, 
A dead rose in the button-hole. 

And he no more might take his place 
Our lessons and our lives to plan : 

Cold Death had kissed the wrinkled face 
Of that most gentle gentleman. 

Ah me, what bitter tears made blind 
Our young eyes, for our thoughtless sin, 

As two and two we walked behind 
The long black coffin he was in. 

And all, sad women now, and men 
With wrinkles and gray hairs, can see 

How he might wear a rose-bud then. 
And read iove-verses tenderly. 



18 BALLADS, 



The best man should never pass by 
The worst, but to brotherhood true, 

Entreat him thus gently, " Lo, I 
Am tempted in all things as you." 

Of one dust all peoples are made, 
One sky doth above them extend, 

And whether through sunshine or shade 
Their paths run, they meet at the end. 

And whatever his honors may be, — 
Of riches, or genius, or blood, 

God never made any man free 
To find out a separate good. 




THE GRAY SWAN.// 

" Oh tell me, sailor, tell me true, 

Is my little lad, my Elihu, 

A-sailing with your ship ? " 

The sailor's eyes were dim with dew, — 

"Your little lad, your Elihu?" 

He said, with trembling Up, — 
" What little lad ? what ship ? " 

" What little lad ! as if there could be 

Another such an one as he ! 

What little lad, do you say? 

Why, Elihu, that took to the sea* 

The moment I put him off my knee ! 
It was just the other day 
The Gray Swan sailed away." 



20 BALLADS. 

44 The other day ? " the sailor's eyes 
Stood open with a great surprise, — 
" The other day ? the Swan ? " 
His heart began in his throat to rise. 
" Ay, ay, sir, here in the cupboard lies 
The jacket he had on." 
"And so your lad is gone?" 

44 Gone with the Swan" " And did she stand 
With her anchor clutching hold of the sand, 

For a month, and never stir?" 
44 Why, to be sure ! I 've seen from the land, 
Like a lover kissing his lady's hand, 

The wild sea kissing her, — 

A sight to remember, sir." 

44 But, my good mother, do you know 

All this was twenty years ago ? 

I stood on the Gray Swan's deck, 

And to that lad I saw you throw, 

Taking it off, as it might be, so ! 
The kerchief from your neck." 
44 Ay, and he '11 bring it back ! " 

44 And did the little lawless lad 

That has made you sick and made you sad, 

Sail with the Gray Swan's crew ? " 
44 Lawless ! the man is going mad ! 
The best boy ever mother had, — 



BALLADS. * 21 

Be sure he sailed with the crew ! 
What would you have him do ? " 

"And he has never written line, 

Nor sent you word, nor made you sign 

To say he was alive ? " 
u Hold ! if 't was wrong, the wrong is mine ; 
Besides, he may be in the brine, 

And could he write from the grave ? 

Tut, man ! what would you have ? " 

" Gone twenty years, — a long, long cruise, — 
'T was wicked thus your love to abuse ; 

But if the lad still live, 
And come back home, think you you can 
Forgive him ? " — " Miserable man, 

You 're mad as the sea, — you rave,— 

What have I to forgive ? " 

The sailor twitched his shirt so blue, 
And from within his bosom drew 

The kerchief. She was wild. 

" My God ! my Father ! is it true ? 
My little lad, my Elihu ! 

My blessed boy, my child! 

My dead, my living child ! " 



22 BALLADS. 



THE WASHERWOMAN. y 

At the north end of our village stands, 
With gable black and high, 

A weather-beaten house, — I 've stopt 
Often as I went by, 

To see the strip of bleaching grass 

Slipped brightly in between 
The long straight rows of hollyhocks, 

And current-bushes green ; 

The clumsy bench beside the door, 

And oaken washing-tub, 
Where poor old Rachel used to stand, 

And rub, and rub, and rub ! 

Her blue-checked apron speckled with 

The suds, so snowy white ; 
From morning when I went to school 

Till I went home at night, 

She never took her sunburnt arms 

Out of the steaming tub : 
We used to say 't was weary work 

Only to hear her rub. 



BALLADS. 23 

With sleeves stretched straight upon the grass 

The washed shirts used to lie ; 
By dozens I have counted them 

Some days, as I went by. 

The burly blacksmith, battering at 

His red-hot iron bands, 
Would make a joke of wishing that 

He had old Rachel's hands ! 

And when the sharp and ringing strokes 

Had doubled up his shoe, 
As crooked as old Rachel's back, 

He used to say 't would do. 

And every village housewife, with 

A conscience clear and light, 
Would send for her to come and wash 

An hour or two at night ! 

Her hair beneath her cotton cap 

Grew silver-white and thin ; 
And the deep furrows in her face 

Ploughed all the roses in. 

Yet patiently she kept at work, — 

We school-girls used to say 
The smile about her sunken mouth 

Would quite go out some day. 



24 BALLADS. 

Nobody ever thought the spark 
That in her sad eyes shone, 

Burned outward from a living soul 
Immortal as their own. 

And though a tender flush sometimes 
Into her cheek would start, 

Nobody dreamed old Rachel had 
A woman's loving heart! 

At last she left her heaps of clothes 

One quiet autumn day, 
And stript from off her sunburnt arms 

The weary suds away ; 

That night within her moonlit door 
She sat alone, — her chin 

Sunk in her hand, — her eyes shut up, 
As if to look within. 

Her face uplifted to the star 
That stood so sw r eet and low 

Against old crazy Peter's house — 
(He loved her long ago !) 

Her heart had worn her body to 
A handful of poor dust, — 

Her soul was gone to be arrayed 
In marriage-robes, I trust. 






BALLADS. 25 



GROWING RICH. 

And why are you pale, my Nora? 

And why do you sigh and fret ? 
The black ewe had twin lambs to-day, 

And we shall be rich folk yet. 

Do you mind the clover-ridge, Nora, 
That slopes to the crooked stream? 

The brown cow pastured there this week, 
And her milk is sweet as cream. 

The old gray mare that last year fell 

As thin as any ghost, 
Is getting a new white coat, and looks 

As young as her colt, almost. 

And if the corn-land should do well, 

And so, please God, it may, 
I '11 buy the white-faced bull a bell, 

To make the meadows gay. 

I know we are growing rich, Johnny, 

And that is why I fret, 
For my little brother Phil is down 

In the dismal coal-pit yet. 

4 



26 BALLADS. 

And when the sunshine sets in th' corn, 

The tassels green and gay, 
It will not touch my father's eyes. 

That are going blind, they say. 

But if I were not sad for him, 

Nor yet for little Phil, 
Why, darling Molly's hand, last year, 

Was cut off in the mill. 

And so, nor mare nor brown milch-cow, 

Nor lambs can joy impart, 
For the blind old man and th' mill and mine 

Are all upon my heart. 



Too much of joy is sorrowful, 
So cares must needs abound ; 

The vine that bears too many flowers 
Will trail upon the ground. 



BALLADS. 27 



SANDY MACLEOD. 

When 1 think of the weary nights and days 
Of poor, hard-working folk, always 
I see, with his head on his bosom bowed, 
The luckless shoemaker, Sandy Macleod. 

Jeering schoolboys used to say 
His chimney would never be raked away 
By the moon, and you by a jest so rough 
May know that his cabin was low enough. 

Nothing throve with him ; his colt and cow 
Got their living, he did n't know how, — 
Yokes on their scraggy necks swinging about, 
Beating and bruising them year in and out. 

Out at the elbow he used to go, — 
Alas for him that he did not know 
The way to make poverty regal, — not he, 
If such way under the sun there be. 

Sundays all day in the door he sat, 

A string of withered«up crape on his hat, 

The crown half fallen against his head, 

And half sewed in with a shoemaker's thread- 



28 BALLADS. 

Sometimes with his hard and toil-worn hand 
He would smooth and straighten th' faded band, 
Thinking perhaps of a little mound 
Black with 'nettles the long year round. 

Blacksmith and carpenter, both were poor, 
And there was the schoolmaster who, to be sure, 
Had seen rough weather, but after all 
When they met Sandy he went to the wall. 

His wife was a lady, they used to say, 
Repenting at leisure her wedding-day, 
And that she was come of a race too proud 
E'er to have mated with Sandy Macleod ! 

So fretting she sat from December to June, 
While Sandy, poor soul, to a funeral-tune 
Would beat out his hard, heavy leather, until 
He set himself up, and got strength to be still. 

It was not the full moon that made it so light 
In the poor little dwelling of Sandy one night, 
It was not the candles all shining around, — 
Ah, no I 't was the light of the day he had found. 



BALLADS, 2tf 



THE PICTURE-BOOK. u 

The black walnut-logs in the chimney 
Made ruddy the house with their light, 

And the pool in the hollow was covered 
With ice like a lid, — it was night ; 

And Roslyn and I were together, — 
I know now the pleased look he wore, 

And the shapes of the shadows that checkered 
The hard yellow planks of the floor ; 

And how, when the wind stirred the candle, 
Affrighted they ran from its gleams, 

And crept up the wall to the ceiling 
Of cedar, and hid by the beams. 

There were books on the mantel-shelf, dusty, 
And shut, and I see in my mind, 

The pink-colored primer of pictures 
We stood on our tiptoes to find. 

We opened the leaves where a camel 
Was seen on a sand-covered track, 

A-snuffing for water, and bearing 
A great bag of gold on his back ; 



30 BALLADS. 

And talked of the free flowing rivers 

A tithe of his burden would buy, 
And said, when the lips of the sunshine 

Had sucked his last water-skin dry ; 

With thick breath and mouth gaping open, 
And red eyes a-strain in his head, 

His bones would push out as if buzzards 
Had picked him before he was dead ! 

Then turned the leaf over, and finding 

A palace that banners made gay, 
Forgot the bright splendor of roses 

That shone through our windows in May ; 

And sighed for the great beds of princes, 
While pillows for him and for me 

Lay soft among ripples of ruffles 
As sweet and as white as could be. 

And sighed for their valleys, forgetting 
How warmly the morning sun kissed 

Our hills, as they shrugged their green shoulders 
Above the white sheets of the mist. 

Their carpets of dyed wool were softer, 
We said, than the planks of our floor, 

Forgetting the flowers that in summer 
Spread out their gold mats at our door. 



BALLADS. 31 

The storm spit its wrath in the chimney, 

And blew the cold ashes aside, 
And only one poor little fagot 

Hung out its red tongue as it died , 

When Roslyn and I through the darkness 

Crept off to our shivering beds, 
A thousand vague fancies and wishes 

Still wildly astir in our heads : 

Not guessing that we, too, were straying 
In thought on a sand-covered track, 

Like the camel a-dying for water, 
And bearing the gold on his back. 



-^*?&&m<& 2 ^- 



He spoils his house and throws his pains away 
Who, as the sun veers, builds his windows o'er, 

For, should he wait, the Light, some time of day, 
Would come and sit beside him in his door. 



32 BALLADS. 



A WALK THROUGH THE SNOW. 1/ 

I walked from our wild north country once, 

In a driving storm of snow ; 
Forty and seven miles in a day — 

You smile, — do you think it slow ? 
You would n't if ever you had ploughed 

Through a storm like that, I trow. 

There was n't a cloud as big as my hand, 

The summer before, in the sky ; 
The grass in th' meadows was ground to dust, 

The springs and wells went dry ; 
We must have corn, and three stout men 

Were picked to go and buy. 

Well, 1 was one , two Dags I swung 

Across my shoulder, so! 
And kissed my wife and boys, — their eyes 

Were blind to see me go. 
'T was a bitter day, and just as th' sun 

Went down, wp, met the snow ! 



BALLADS. 33 

At first we whistled and laughed and sung, 

Our blood so nimbly stirred ; 
But as the snow-clogs dragged at our feet, 

And the air grew black and blurred, 
We walked together for miles and miles, 

And did not speak a word ! 

I never saw a wilder storm : 

It blew and beat with a will; 
Beside me, like two men of sleet, 

Walked my two mates, until 
They fell asleep in their armor of ice, 

And both of them stood still. 

I knew that they were warm enough, 

And yet I could not bear 
To strip them of their cloaks ; their eye* 

Were open and a-stare; 
And so I laid their hands across 

Their breasts, and ieft them there. 

And ran, — O Lord, I cannot tell 

How fast ! in my dismay 
I thought the fences and the trees — 

The cattle, where they lay 
So black against their stacks of snow — 

All swam the other way ! 

5 



34 # BALLADS. 

And when at dawn I saw a hut, 

With smoke upcurling wide, 
I thought it must have been my mates 

That lived, and I that died ; 
'T was heaven to see through th' frosty panea 

The warm, red cheeks inside ! 



— ^^^m^ 2 ^— 



The glance that doth thy neighbor doubt 

Turn thou, O man, within, 
And see if it will not bring out 

Some unsuspected sin. 

To hide from shame the branded brow. 

Make broad thy charity, 
And judge no man, except as thou 

Wouldst have him judge of thee. 







THE WATER-BEARER. S 

'T was in the middle -of summer, 

And burning hot the sun, 
That Margaret sat on the low-roofed porch, 

A-singing as she spun : 



Singing a ditty of slighted love, 
That shook with every note 

The softly shining hair that fell 
In ripples round her throat. 



36 BALLADS. 

The changeful color of her cheek 
At a breath would fall and rise, 

And even th' sunny lights of hope 
Made shadows in her eyes. 

Beneath the snowy petticoat 

You guessed the feet were bare, 

By the slippers near her on the floor, — 
A dainty little pair. 

She loved the low and tender tones 
The wearied summer yields, 

When out of her wheaten leash she slips 
And strays into frosty fields. 

And better than th' time that all 

The air with music fills, 
She loved the little sheltered nest 

Alive with yellow bills. 

But why delay my tale, to make 

A poem in her praise ? 
Enough that truth and virtue shone 

In all her modest ways. 

'T was noon-day when the housewife said, 
44 Now, Margaret, leave undone 

Your task of spinning-work, and set 
Your wheel out of the sun ; 



BALLADS. 37 

ft And tie your slippers on, and take 

The cedar-pail with bands 
Yellow as gold, and bear to the field 

Cool water for the hands ! " 

And Margaret set her wheel aside, 

And breaking off her thread, 
Went forth into the harvest-field 

With her pail upon her head, — 

Her pail of sweetest cedar-wood, 

With shining yellow bands, 
Through clover reaching its red tops 

Almost into her hands. 

Her ditty flowing on the air, 

For she did not break her song, 
And the water dripping o'er th' grass, 

From her pail as she went along, — 

Over the grass that said to her, 

Trembling through all its leaves, 
" A bright rose for some harvester 

To bind among his sheaves ! " 

And clouds of gay green grasshoppers 

Flew up the way she went, 
And beat their wings against their sides, 

And chirped their discontent. 



38 BALLADS. 

And the blackbird left the piping of 

His amorous, airy glee, 
And put his head beneath his wing, — 

An evil sign to see. 

The meadow-herbs, as if they felt 
Some secret wound, in showers 

Shook down their bright buds till her way 
Was ankle-deep with flowers. 

But Margaret never heard th' voice 
That sighed in th' grassy leaves, 

" A bright rose for some harvester 
To bind among his sheaves ! " 

Nor saw the clouds of grasshoppers 

Along her path arise, 
Nor th' laisy hang her head aside 

And shut her golden eyes. 

She never saw the blackbird when 
He hushed his amorous glee, 

And put his head beneath his wing, — 
That evil sign to see. 

Nor did she know the meadow-herbs 
Shook down their buds in showers 

To choke her pathway, though her feet 
Were ankle-deep in flowers. 



BALLADS. 39 

But humming still of slighted love, 

That shook at every note 
The softly shining hair that fell 

Jn ripples round her throat, 

She came 'twixt winrows heaped as high, 

And higher than her waist, 
And under a bush of sassafras 

The cedar-pail she placed. 

And with the drops like starry rain 

A-glittering in her hair, 
She gave to every harvester 

His cool and grateful share. 

But there was one with eyes so sweet 

Beneath his shady brim, 
That thrice within the cedar-pail 

She dipped her cup for him ! 

'What wonder if a young man's heart 

Should feel her beauty's charm, 
And in his fancy clasp her like 

The sheaf within his arm ; 

What wonder if his tender looks, 

That seemed the sweet disguise 
Of sweeter things unsaid, should make 

A picture in her eyes ! 



40 BALLADS. 

What wonder if the single rose 
That graced her cheek erewhile, 

Deepened its cloudy crimson, till 
It doubled in his smile ! 

Ah me ! the housewife never said, 
Again, when Margaret spun, — 

" Now leave your task awhile, and set 
Your wheel out of the sun ; 

" And tie your slippers on, and take 
The pail with yellow bands, 

And bear into the harvest-field 
Cool water for the hands." 

For every day, and twice a-day, 
Did Margaret break her thread, 

And singing, hasten to the field, 
With her pail upon her head, — 

Her pail of sweetest cedar-wood, 
And shining yellow bands, — 

For all her care was now to bear 
Cool water to the hands. 

What marvel if the young man's love 

Unfolded leaf by leaf, 
Until within his arms ere long 

He clasped her like a sheaf! 



BALLADS. 41 

What marvel if 't was Margaret's heart 

With fondest hopes that beat, 
While th' young man's fancy idle lay 

As his sickle in the wheat. 

That, while her thought flew, maiden-like. 

To years of marriage bliss, 
His lay like a bee in a flower, shut up 

Within the moment's kiss ! 

What marvel if his love grew cold, 

And fell off leaf by leaf, 
And that her heart was choked to death, 

Like the rose within his sheaf. 

When autumn filled her lap with leaves, 

Yellow, and cold, and wet, 
The bands of th' pail turned black, and th' wheel 

On the porch-side, idle set. 

And Margaret's hair was combed and tied 

Under a cap of lace, 
And th' housewife held the baby up 

To kiss her quiet face ; 

And all the sunburnt harvesters 

Stood round the door, — each one 
Telling of some good word or deed 

That she had said or done. 



42 BALLADS. 

Nay, there was one that pulled about 

His face his shady brim, 
As if it were his kiss, not Death's, 

That made her eyes so dim. 

And while the tearful women told 
That when they pinned her shroud, 

One tress from th' ripples round her neck 
Was gone, he wept aloud ; 

And answered, pulling down his brim 

Until he could not see, 
It was some ghost that stole the tress, 

For that it was not he ! 

'T is years since on the cedar-pail 
The yellow bands grew black, — 

'T is years since in the harvest-field 
They turned th' green sod back 

To give poor Margaret room, and all 
Who chance that way to pass, 

May see at the head of her narrow bed 
A bush of sassafras. 

Yet often in the time o' th' year 
When the hay is mown and spread, 

There walks a maid in th' midnight shade 
With a pail upon her head. 



BALLADS. 43 



THE BEST JUDGMENT. 

Get up, my little handmaid, 
And see what you will see ; 

Tne stubble-fields and all the fields 
Are white as they can be. 

Put on your crimson cashmere, 
And hood so soft and warm, 

With all its woollen linings, 
And never heed the storm. 

For you must find the miller 
In the west of Wertburg-town, 

And bring me meal, to feed my cows, 
Before the sun is down. 

Then woke the little handmaid, 
From sleeping on her arm, 

And took her crimson cashmere, 
And hood with woollen warm ; 

And bridle, with its buckles 

Of silver, from the wall, 
And rode until the golden sun 

Was sloping to his fall. 



44 



BALLADS. 



Then on the miller's door-stone, 
In the west of Wertburg-town, 

She dropt the bridle from her hands, 
And quietly slid down. 

And when to her sweet face her beast 
Turned round, as if he said, 

" How cold I am ! " she took her hood 
And put it on his head. 

Soft spoke she to the miller, 

" Nine cows are stalled at home, 

And hither for three bags of meal, 
To feed them, I am come." 

Now when the miller saw the price 
She brought was not by half 

Enough to buy three bags of meal, 
He filled up two with chaff. 

The night was wild and windy, 
The moon was thin and old, 

As home the little handmaid rode, 
All shivering with the cold, 



Beside the river, black with ice, 
And through the lonesome wood ; 

The snow upon her hair the while 
A-gathering like a hood. 



BALLADS. 45 

And when beside the roof-tree 

Her good beast neighed aloud, 
Her pretty crimson cashmere 

Was whiter than a shroud. 

" Get down, you silly handmaid," 
The old dame cried, " get down, — 

You 've been a long time riding 

From the west of Wertburg-town ! " 

And from her oaken settle 

Forth hobbled she amain, — 
Alas ! the slender little hands 

Were frozen to the rein. 

Then came the neighbors, one and all, 

With melancholy brows, 
Mourning because the dame had lost 

The keeper of her cows. 

And cursing the rich miller, 

In blind, misguided zeal, 
Because he sent two bags of chaff 

And only one of meal. 

Dear Lord, how little man's award 

The right or wrong attest, 
And he who judges least, I think, 

Is he who judges best. 



46 BALLADS. 



HUGH THORNDYKE. 

Eg Alton's hills are sunny, 

And brave with oak and pine, 

And Egal ton's sons and daughters 
Are tall and straight and fine. 

The harvests in the summer 
Cover the land like a smile, 

For Egalton's men and women 
Are busy all the while. 

'T is merry in the mowing 
To see the great swath fall, 

And the little laughing maidens 
Raking, one and all. 

Their heads like golden lilies 

Shining over the hay, 
And every one among them 

As sweet as a rose in May. 

And yet despite the favor 

Which Heaven doth thus allot, 

Egalton has its goblin, 

As what good land has not ? 



BALLADS. 47 

Hugh Thorndyke — (peace be with him, 

He is not living now) — 
Was tempted by this creature 

One day to leave his plow, 

And sit beside the furrow 

In a shadow cool and sweet, 
For the lying goblin told him 

That Tie would sow his wheat. 

And told him this, moreover, 

That if he would not mind, 
His house should burn to ashes, 

His children be struck blind ! 

So, trusting half, half frightened, 

Poor Hugh with many a groan 
Waited beside the furrow, 

But the wheat was never sown. 

And when the fields about him 
Grew white, — with very shame 

He told his story, giving 
The goblin all the blame. 

Now Hugh's wife loved her husband, 

And when he told her this, 
She took his brawny hands in hers 

And gave them each a kiss, 



48 BALLADS. 

Saying, we ourselves this goblin 
Shall straightway lay to rest, — 

The more he does his worst, dear Hugh, 
The more we '11 do our best ! 

To work they went, and all turned out 

Just as the good wife said, 
And Hugh was blest, — his com that year, 

Grew higher than his head. 

They sing a song in Egalton 
Hugh made there, long ago, 

Which says that honest love and work 
Are all we need below. 



— *o&a^*~ 



Still from the unsatisfying quest 
To know the final plan, 

I turn my soul to what is best 
In nature and in man. 



BALLADS. 49 



FAITHLESS. 

Seven great windows looking seaward, 
Seven smooth columns white and high ; 

h.ere it was we made our bright plans, 
Mildred Jocelyn and I. 

Soft and sweet the water murmured 
By yon stone wall, low and gray, 

'T was the moonlight and the midnight 
Of the middle of the May. 

On the porch, now dark and lonesome, 
Sat we as the hours went by, 

Fearing nothing, hoping all things, 
Mildred Jocelyn and I. 

Singing low and pleasant ditties, 
Kept the tireless wind his way, 

Through the moonlight and the midnight. 
Of the middle of the May. 

Not for sake of pleasant ditties, 
Such as winds may sing or sigh, 

Sat we on the porch together, 
Mildred Jocelyn and I. 

7 



50 BALLADS. 

Shrilly crew the cock so watchful, 
Answering to the watch-dog's bay, 

In the moonlight and the midnight 
Of the middle of the May. 

Had the gates of Heaven been open 
We would then have passed them by> 

Well content with earthly pleasures, 
Mildred Jocelyn and I. 

I have seen the bees thick-flying, — 
Azure-winged and ringed with gold ; 

I have seen the sheep from washing 
Come back snowy to the fold ; 

And her hair was bright as bees are, 
Bees with shining golden bands ; 

And no wool was ever whiter 
Than her little dimpled hands. 

Oft we promised to be lovers, 

Howe'er fate our faith should try ; 

Giving kisses back for kisses, 
Mildred Jocelyn and I. 

Tears, sad tears, be stayed from falling;; 

Ye can bring no faintest ray 
From the moonlight and the midnight 

Of the middle of the May. 



BALLADS. 51 

If some friend would come and tell me, 

" On your Mildred's eyes so blue 
Grass has grown, but on her death-bed 

She was saying prayers for you;" 

Here beside the smooth white columns 

I should not so grieve to-day, 
For the moonlight and the midnight 

Of the middle of the May. 



~vX^=<ft>^-J 



Do not look for wrong and evil — 
You will find them if you do ; 

As you measure for your neighbor 
He will measure back to you. 

Look for goodness, look for gladness, 
You will meet them all the while | 

If you bring a smiling visage 
To the glass, you meet a smile. 



:>2 



BALLADS. 



MY FADED SHAWL. 




TELL you a story, do you 



say 



wits re- 



the 



Whatever my 

member ? 
Well, going down to 

woods one day 

Through the winds o' 

the wild November, 

I met a lad, called Char- 



ley. 



We lived on the crest o 
ridge, 

And I was a farmer's daughter, 
And under the hill by the Krumley bridge 
Of the crazy Krumley water, 

Lived tLis poor lad, Charley. 



the Krumle? 



Right well I knew his ruddy cheek, 
And step as light as a feather, 

Although we never were used to speak, 
And never to play together, 

I and this poor lad Charley. 



BALLADS. 53 

So, when I saw him hurrying down 

My path, will you believe me ? 
I knit my brow to an ugly frown, — 

Forgive me, O forgive me ! 

Sweet shade of little Charley. 

The dull clouds dropped their skirts of snow 
On the hills, and made them colder; 

I was only twelve years old, or so, 
And may be a twelvemonth older 
Was Charley, dearest Charley. 

A faded shawl, with flowers o* blue, 

All tenderly and fairly 
Enwrought by his mother's hand, I knew s 

He wore that day, my Charley, 
My little love, my Charley. 

His great glad eyes with light were lit 
Like the dewy light o' the morning; 

His homespun jacket, not a whit 
Less proudly, for my scorning, 

He wore, brave-hearted Charley, 

I bore a pitcher, — 't was our pride, — ■ 

At the fair my father won it, 
And consciously I turned the side 

With the golden lilies on it, 

To dazzle the eyes o' Charley. 



54 BALLADS. 

This pitcher, and a milk-white loaf, 

Piping hot from the platter, 
When, where the path turned sharply off 

To the crazy Krumley water, 
I came upon my Charley. 

He smiled, — my pulses never stirred 
From their still and steady measures, 

Till the wind came flapping down like a bird 
And caught away my treasures. 

"Help me, O Charley! Charley! 

My loaf, my golden lilies gone ! " 

My heart was all a-flutter ; 
For I saw them whirling on and on 

To the frozen Krumley water, 

And then I saw my Charley, 

The frayed and faded shawl from his neck 
Unknot, with a quick, wise cunning, 

And speckled with snow-flakes, toss it back, 
That he might be free for running. 
My good, great-hearted Charley. 

I laid it softly on my arm, 

I warmed it in my bosom, 
And traced each broider-stitch to the form 

Of its wilding model blossom, 

For sake of my gentle Charley. 



BALLADS. 55 

Away, away ! like a shadow fleet ! 

The air was thick and blinding ; 
The icy stones were under his feet, 

And the way was steep and winding. 

Come back ! come back, my Charley ! 

He waved his ragged cap in the air, 

My childish fears to scatter ; 
Dear Lord, was it Charley ? Was he there, 

On th' treacherous crust o' th' water ? 
No more ! 't is death ! my Charley. 

The thin blue glittering sheet of ice 

Bends, breaks, and falls asunder ; 
His arms are lifted once, and twice ! 

My God ! he is going under ! 

He is drowned ! he is dead! my Charley, 

The wild call stops, — the blood runs chill; 

I dash the tears from my lashes, 
And strain my gaze to th' foot o' th' hill, — 

Who flies so fast through the rushes ? 
My drowned love ? my Charley ? 

My brain is wild, — I laugh, I cry, — 

The chill blood thaws and rallies ; § 
What holds he thus, so safe and high ? 

My loaf? and my golden lilies ? 

Charley ! my sweet, sweet Charley ! 



56 BALLADS. 

Across my mad brain word on word 

Of tenderness went whirling ; 
I kissed him, called him my little bird 

O' th' woods, my dove, my darling, — 
My true, true love, my Charley. 

In what sweet phrases he replied 
I know not now — no matter — 

This only, that he would have died 
In the crazy Krumley water 

To win my praise, — dear Charley ! 

He took the frayed and faded shawl, 

For his sake warmed all over, 
And wrapped me round and round with all 

The tenderness of a lover, — 

My best, my bravest Charley ! 

And when his shoes o' the snows were full, — 
Ay, full to their tops, — a-smiling 

He said they were lined with a fleece o' wool. 
The pain o' th' frost beguiling. 

Was ever a lad like Charley? 

So down the slope o' th' Krumley ridge, 

Our h^nds locked fast together, 
And over the crazy Krumley bridge, 

We went through the freezing weather, — 
I and my drownM Charley. 



BALLADS. 57 

The cornfields all of ears were bare ; 

But the stalks, so bright and brittle, 
And the black and empty husks were there 

For the mouths of the hungry cattle. 
We passed them, I and Charley, 

And passed the willow-tree that went 
With the wind, as light as a feather, 

And th' two proud oaks with their shoulders bent 
Till their faces came together, — 
Whispering, I said to Charley : 

The hollow sycamore, so white, 

The old gum, straight and solemn, 
With never the curve of a root in sight ; 

But set in the ground like a column, — 
I, prattling to my Charley. 

We left behind the sumach hedge, 

And the waste of stubble crossing, 
Came at last to the dusky edge 

Of the woods, so wildly tossing, — 
I and my quiet Charley. 

Ankle-deep in the leaves we stood, — 
The leaves that were brown as leather, 

And saw the choppers chopping the wood, — 
Seven rough men together, — 

I and my drooping Charley. * 



68 BALLADS. 

I see him now as I saw him stand 

With my loaf — he had hardly won it — 

And the beautiful pitcher in his hand, 
With the golden lilies on it, — 

My little saint, — my Charley. 

The stubs were burning here and there, 
The winds the fierce flames blowing, 

And the arms o' th' choppers, brown and bare, 
Now up, now down are going, — 
I turn to them from Charley. 

Right merrily the echoes ring 

From the sturdy work a-doing, 
And as the woodsmen chop, they sing 

Of the girls that they are wooing. 
O what a song for Charley ! 

This way an elrn begins to lop, 

And that, its balance losing, 
And the squirrel comes from his nest in the top, 

And sits in the boughs a-musing. 
What ails my little Charley ? 

The loaf from out his hand he drops, 

His eyelid flutters, closes; 
He tries to speak, he whispers, stops, — 

His mouth its rose-red loses, — 

One look, just one, my Charley! 



BALLADS. 59 

And now liis white and frozen cheek 

Each wild-eyed chopper fixes, 
And never a man is heard to _ speak 

As they set their steel-blue axes, 

And haste to the help o' Charley ! 

Say, what does your beautiful pitcher hold ? 

Come tell us if you can, sir ! 
The chopper's question was loud and bold. 

But never a sign nor answer: 
All fast asleep was Charley. 

The stubs are burning low to th' earth, 

The winds the fierce flames flaring, 
And now to the edge of the crystal hearth 

The men in their arms are bearing 
The clay-cold body of Charley. 

O'er heart, o'er temple those rude hands go, 

Each hand as light as a brother's, 
As they gather about him in the snow, 

Like a company of mothers, — 

My dead, my darling Charley. 

Before them all, (my heart grew bold,) 

From off* my trembling bosom, 
I unwound the mantle, fold by fold, 

All for my blighted blossom, 

My sweet white flower, — my Charley. 



60 BALLADS. 

I have tokens large, I have tokens small 
Of all my life's lost pleasures, 

But that poor frayed and faded shawl 
Is the treasure of my treasures, — 
The first, last gift of Charley. 



CARE. 

Care is like a husbandman 

Who doth guard our treasures. 

And the while, all ways he can, 
Spoils our harmless pleasures. 

Loving hearts and laughing brows. 
Most he seeks to plunder, 

And each furrow that he plor^ne 
Turns the roses under. 



BALLADS. , 61 



OLD CHUMS. 

Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you? 

I should n't have known you but that I was told 
You might be expected ; — pray, how do you do ? 

But what, under heaven, has made you so old? 

Your hair ! why, you 've only a little gray fuzz ! 

And your beard 's white ! but that can be beautifully 
dyed ; 
And your legs are n't but just half as long as they was \ 

And then — stars and garters ! your vest is so wide ! 

Is this your hand ? Lord, how I envied you that 
In the time of our courting, — so soft, and so small, 

And now it is callous inside, and so fat, — 

Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is all. 

Turn round ! let me look at you ! is n't it odd, 

How strange in a few years a fellow's chum grows j 

Y r our eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod, 

And what are these lines branching out from youi 
nose ? 



82 BALLADS, 

Your back has gone up and your shoulders gone down, 
And all the old roses are under the plough ; 

Why, Jack, if we 'd happened to meet about town, 
I would n't have known you from Adam, I vow ! 

You 've had trouble, have you? I 'm sorry; but, John, 
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life. 

How 's Billy, my namesake ? You don't say he 's gone 
To the war, John, and that you have buried your 
wife ? 

Poor Katharine ! so she has left you — ah me ! 

I thought she would live to be fifty, or more. 
What is it you tell me ? She was fifty-three ! 

no, Jack! she wasn't so much, by a score! 

Well, there 's little Katy, — was that her name, John ? 

She '11 rule your house one of these days like a qusen. 
That baby ! good Lord ! is she married and gone ? 

With a Jack ten years old ! and a Katy fourteen ! 

Then I give it up ! Why, you 're younger than I 
By ten or twelve years, and to think you 've come 
back 
A. sober old graybeard, just ready to die ! 

1 don't understand how it is — do you, Jack ? 

[ Ve got all my faculties yet, sound and bright ; 
Slight failure my eyes are beginning to hint ; 



BALLADS. 63 

But still, with my spectacles on, and a light 

'Twixt them and the page, I can read any print. 

My hearing is dull, and my leg is more spare, 
Perhaps, than it was when 1 beat you at ball ; 

My breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair, — 
But nothing worth mentioning, nothing at all ! 

My hair is just turning a little, you see, 

And lately I 've put on a broader-brimmed hat 

Than I wore at your wedding, but you will agree. 
Old fellow, I look all the better for that. 

I 'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 't is true, 

And my nose is n't quite on a straight line, they say; 

For all that, I don't think I 've changed much, do you ? 
And v aont feel a day older, Jack, not a day. 



~<^\*>X(»>3o- 



Apart from the woes that are dead and gone, 

And the shadow of future care, 
The heaviest yoke of the present hour 

Is easy enough to bear. 



64 BALLADS. 



THE SHOEMAKER.!/ 

Now the hickory with its hum 

Cheers the wild and rainy weather, 

And the shoemaker has come 

With his lapstone, last, and leather. 

With his head as white as wool, 
With the wrinkles getting bolder, 

And his heart with news as full 
As the wallet on his shoulder. 

How the children's hearts will beat, 

How their eyes will shine with pleasure 

As he sets their little feet, 

Bare and rosy, in his measure. 

And how, behind his chair, 

They will steal grave looks to summon, 
As he ties away his hair 

From his forehead, like a woman. 

When he tells the merry news 

How their eyes will laugh and glisten, 

While the mother binds the shoes 
And they gather round and listen. 



BALLADS. 

But each one, leaning low 

On his lapstone, will be crying, 

As he tells how little Jo, 

With a broken back, is dying. 

Of the way he came to fall 

In the flowery April weather, 
Of the new shoes on the wall 

That are hanging, tied together. 

How the face of little Jo 

Has grown white, and they who love Viinc 
See the shadows come and go, 

As if angels flew above him. 

And the old shoemaker, true 

To the woe of the disaster, 
Will uplift his apron blue 

To bis eyes, then work the faster. 



66 BALLADS. 



TO THE WIND. 

Steer hither, rough old mariner, 

Keeping your jolly crew 
Beating about in the seas of life,™ 

Steer hither, 'and tell me true 
About my little son, Maximus, 

Who sailed away with you I 

Seven and twenty years ago 

He came to us, — ah me I 
The snow that fell that whistling night 

Was not so pure as he, 
And I was rich enough, I tnry, 

When I took him on my knee. 

I was ricli enough, and when I met 

A man, unthrift and lorn, 
Whom I a hundred times had met 

With less of pity than scorn, 
I opened my purse, — it was well for him 

That Maximus was born ! 






BALLADS. 67 

We have five boys at home, erect 

And straight of limb, and tall, 
Gentle, and loving all that God 

Has made, or great or small, 
But Maximus, our youngest born, 

Was the gentlest of them all ! 

Yet was he brave, — they all are brave, 

Not one for favor or frown 
That fears to set his strength against 

The bravest of the town, 
But this, our little Maximus, 

Could fight when he was down. 

Six darling boys ! not one of all, 

If we had had to choose, 
Could we have singled from the rest 

To sail on such a cruise, 
But surely little Maximus 

Was not the one to lose ! 

His hair divided into slips, 

And tumbled every way, — 
His mother always called them curls, 

She has one to this day, - 
And th' nails of his hands were thin and red 

As the leaves of a rose in Mav. 



68 BALLADS. 

Steer hither, rough mariner, and bring 

Some news of our little lad, — 
If he be anywhere out of th' grave 

It will make his mother glad, 
Tho' he grieved her more with his waywardne 

Than all the boys she had. 

I know it was against himself, 

For he was good and kind, 
That he left us, though he saw our eyes 

With tears, for his sake, blind, — 
O how can you give to 'such as he, 

Your nature, wilful wind ! 



What comfort, when with clouds of woe 
The heart is burdened, and must weep, 

To feel that pain must end, — to know, 
" He giveth his beloved sleep." 

When in the mid-day march we meet 
The outstretched shadows of the night, 

The promise, how divinely sweet, 
" At even-time it shall be light." 




LITTLE CYRUS. 

Emily Mayfield all the day- 
Sits and rocks her cradle alone, 

And never a neighbor comes to say 
How pretty little Cyrus has grown. 



Meekly Emily's head is hung, 

Many a sigh from her bosom breaks, 

And ne'er such pitiful tune was sung 
As that her lowly lullaby makes. 



70 BALLADS. 

Near where the village schoolhouse stands. 
On the grass by the mossy spring, 

Merry children are linking hands, 
But little Cyrus is not in the ring. 

" They might make room for me, if they tried,' 
He thinks as he listens to call and shout, 

And his eyes so pretty are open wide, 
Wondering why they have left him out. 

Nightly hurrying home they go, 

Each, of the praise he has had, to boast 

But never an honor can Cyrus show, 
And yet he studies his book the most. 

Little Cyrus is . out in the hay, — 

Not where the clover is sweet and red, 

With mates of his tender years at play, 
But where the stubble is sharp, instead, 

And every flowerless shrub and tree 
That takes the twinkling noontide heat, 

Is dry and dusty as it can be ; 

There with his tired, sunburnt feet 

Dragging wearily, Cyrus goes, 

Trying to sing as the others do, 
But never the stoutest hand that mows 

Says, " It is work too hard for you, 



BALLADS. 71 

Little Cyrus, your hands so small 

Bleed with straining to keep your place, 

And the look that says I must bear it all 
Is sadder than tears in your childish face : 

So give me your knotty swath to mow, 
And rest awhile on the shady sward, 

Else your body will crooked grow, 
Little Cyrus, from working hard." 

If he could listen to words like that, 
The stubble would not be half so rough 

To his naked feet, and his ragged hat 

Would shield him from sunshine well enough. 

But ne'er a moment the mowers check 

Song or whistle, to think of him, 
With blisters burning over his neck, 

Under his straw hat's ragged b rmi# 



CO 



So, stooping over the field he goes, 
With none to pity if he complain, 

And so the crook in his body grows, 

And he never can stand up straight again. 

The cattle lie down in the lane so still, — 
The scythes in the apple-tree shine bright* 

And Cyrus sits on the ashen sill 

Watching the motes, in the streaks of light, 



72 BALLADS. 

Quietly slanting out of the sky, 
Over the hill to the porch so low, 

Wondering if in the world on high 

There will be any briery fields to mow. 

Emily Mayfield, pale and weak, 

Steals to his side in the light so dim, 

And the single rose in his swarthy cheek 
Grows double, the while she says to him, — 

Little Cyrus, 't is many a day 

Since one with just your own sweet eyes, 
And a voice as rich as a bird's in May, 

(Gently she kisses the boy and sighs,) 

Here on the porch when the work was done, 
Sat with a young girl, (not like me,) 

Her heart was light as the wool she spun, 
And her laughter merry as it could be; 

Her hair was silken, he used to say, 

When they sat on the porch-side, " woful when,' 
And I know the clover you mowed to-day 

Was not more red than her cheeks were then. 

He told her many a story wild, 

Like this, perhaps, which I tell to you, 

And she was a woman less than child, 
And thought whatever he said was true. 



BALLADS. 73 

From home and kindred, — ah me, ah me! 

With only her faith in his love, she fled, 
'T was all like a dreaming, and when she could see 

She owned she was sinful and prayed to be dead. 

But always, however long she may live, 

Desolate, desolate, she shall repine, 
And so with no love to receive or to give, 

Her face is as sad and as wrinkled as mine. 

Little Cyrus, trembling, lays 

His head on his mother's knee to cry, 

And kissing his sunburnt cheek, she says, 
" Hush, my darling, it was not I." 



Our God is love, and that which we miscall 
Evil, in this good world that He has made, 
Is meant to be a little tender shade 

Between us and His glory, — that is all; 

And he who loves the best his fellow man 

Is loving God, the holiest way he can. 

1C 



74 BALLADS. 



MORNING. 

Wake, Dillie, my darling, and kiss me, 

The daybreak is nigli, — 
I can see, through the half-open curtain, 

A strip of blue sky. 

Yon lake, in her valley-bed lying, 

Looks fair as a bride, 
And pushes, to greet the sun's coming, 

The mist sheets aside. 

The birds, to the wood-temple flying, 

Their matins to chant, 
Are chirping their love to each other, 

With wings dropt aslant. 

Not a tree, that the morning's bright edges 

With silver illumes, 
But trembles and stirs with its pleasure 

Through all its green plumes. 

Wake, Dillie, and join in the praises 

All nature doth give ; 
Clap hands, and rejoice in the goodness 

That leaves you to live. 



BALLADS. 

For what is the world in her glory- 
To that which thou art ? 

Thank God for the soul that is in you, — 
Thank God for your heart ! 

The world that had never a lover 

Her bright face to kiss, — 
With her splendors of stars and of noontides 

How poor is her bliss ! 

Wake, Dillie, — the white vest of morning 

With crimson is laced ; 
And why should delights of God's giving 

Be running to waste ! 

Full measures, pressed down, are awaiting 

Our provident use ; 
And is there no sin in neglecting 

As well as abuse ? 

The cornstalk exults in its tassel, 

The flint in its spark, — 
And shall the seed planted within me 

Rot out in the dark ? 

Shall I be ashamed to give culture 

To what God has sown ? 
When nature asks bread, shall I offer 

A serpent, or stone ? 



76 BALLADS. 

For could I out-weary its yearnings 

By fasting, or pain, — 
Would life have a better fulfilment, 

Or death have a gain ? 

Nay, God will not leave us unanswered 

In any true need ; 
His will may be writ in an instinct, 

As well as a creed. 

And, Dillie, my darling, believe me, 

That life is the best, 
That, loving here, truly and sweetly, 

With Him leaves the rest. 

Its head to the sweep of the whirlwind 

The wise willow suits, — 
While the oak, that 's too stubborn for bending, 

Comes up by the roots. 

Such lessons, each day, round about us, 

Our good Mother writes, — 
To show us that Nature, in some way, 

Avenges her slights. 



BALLADS. 77 



THE SUMMER STORM. 

At noon-time 1 stood in the door-way to see 
The spots, burnt like blisters, as white as could be. 
Along the near meadow, shoved in like a wedge 
Betwixt the high-road, and the stubble-land's edge. 

The leaves of the elm-tree were dusty and brown, 
The birds sat with shut eyes and wings hanging down 
The corn reached its blades out, as if in the pain 
Of crisping and scorching it felt for the rain. 

Their meek faces turning away from the sun, 
The cows waded up to their flanks in the run, 
The sheep, so herd-loving, divided their flocks, 
And singly lay down by the sides of the rocks. 

At sunset there rose and stood black in the east 
A cloud with the forehead and horns of a beast, 
That quick to the zenith went higher and higher, 
With feet that were thunder and eyes that were fire. 

Then came a hot sough, like a gust of his breath, 
And the leaves took the tremble and whiteness of death, — 
The dog, to his master, from kennel and kin, 
dame whining and shaking, with back crouching in. 



78 BALLADS. 

At twilight the darkness was fearful to see : 

"Make room," cried the children, "O mother, for me!'' 

As climbing her chair and her lap, with alarm, 

And whisper, — "Was ever there seen such a storm!" 

At morning, the run where the cows cooled their flanks 
Had washed up a hedge of white roots from its banks ; 
The turnpike was left a blue streak, and each side 
The gutters like rivers ran muddy and wide. 

The barefooted lad started merry to school, 

And the way was the nearest that led through the pool ; 

The red-bird wore never so shining a coat, 

Nor the pigeon so glossy a ring on her throat. 

The teamster sat straight in his place, for the nonce, 
And sang to his sweetheart and team, both at once ; 
And neighbors shook hands o'er the fences that day, 
And talked of their homesteads instead of their hay. 






BALLADS. 7$ 



IF AND IF. 

If I were a painter, I could paint 

The dwarfed and straggling wood, 
And the hillside where the meeting-house 

With the wooden belfry stood, 
A dozen steps from the door, — alone, 
On four square pillars of rough gray stone. 

We schoolboys used to write our names 

With our finger-tips each day 
In th' dust o' th' cross-beams, — once it shone, 

I have heard the old folks say, 
(Praising the time past, as old folks will,) 
Like a pillar o' fire on the side o' th' hill. 

I could paint the lonesome lime-kilns, 
And the lime-burners, wild and proud, 

Their red sleeves gleaming in the smoke 
Like a rainbow in a cloud, — 

Their huts by the brook, and their mimicking crew - 

Making believe to be lime-burners too! 



80 BALLADS. 

I could paint the brawny wood-cutter, 

With the patches at his knees, — 
He 's been asleep these twenty years, 

Among his friends, the trees : 
The day that he died, the best oak o' the wood 
Came up by the roots, and he lies where it stood 



I could paint the blacksmith's dingy shop, — 

Its sign, a pillar of smoke ; 
The farm-horse halt, the rough-haired colt, 

And the jade with her neck in a yoke; 
The pony that made to himself a law, 
And would n't go under the saddle, nor draw ! 

The poor old mare at the door-post, 
With joints as stiff as its pegs, — 

Her one white eye, and her neck awry, — 
Trembling the flies from her legs, 

And the thriftless farmer that used to stand 

And curry her ribs with a kindly hand. 

I could paint his quaint old-fashioned house, 
With its windows, square and small, 

And the seams of clay running every way 
Between the stones o' the wall: 

The roof, with furrows of mosses green, 

And new bright shingles set between. 



BALLADS. 8] 

The oven, bulging big behind, 

And the narrow porch before, 
And the weather-cock for ornament 

On the pole beside the door ; 
And th' row of milk-pans, shining bright 
As silver, in the summer light. 

And I could paint his girls and boys, 

Each and every one, 
Hepzibah sweet, with her little bare feet ? 

And Shubal, the stalwart son, 
And wife and mother, with home-spun gown, 
And roses beginning to shade into brown. 

I could paint the garden, with its paths 
Cut smooth, and running straight, — 

The gray sage bed, the poppies red, 
And the lady-grass at the gate, — 

The black w r arped slab with its hive of bees. 

In the corner, under the apple-trees. 

I could paint the fields, in the middle hush 

Of winter, bleak and bare, 
Some snow like a lamb that is caught in a bush, 

Hano;ino; here and there, — 
The mildewed haystacks, all a-lop, 
And the old dead stub with the crow at the top. 
11 



82 BALLADS. 

The cow, with a board across her eyes, 

And her udder dry as dust, 
Her hide so brown, her horn turned down, 

And her nose the color of rust, — 
The walnut-tree so stiff and high, 
With its black bark twisted all awry. 

The hillside, and the small space set 

With broken palings round, — 
The long loose grass, and the little grave 

With the head-stone on the ground, 
And the willow, like the spirit of grace 
Bending tenderly over the place. 

The miller's face, half smile, half frown, 

Were a picture I could paint, 
And the mill, with gable steep and brown, 

And dripping wheel aslant, — 
The weather-beaten door, set wide, 
And the heaps of meal-bags either side. 

The timbers cracked to gaping seams, 

The swallows' clay-built nests, 
And the rows of doves that sit on the beams 

With plump and glossy breasts, — 
The bear by his post sitting upright to eat, 
With half of his clumsy legs in his feet. 






BALLADS. 83 

I could paint the mill-stream, cut in two 

By the heat o' the summer skies, 
And the sand-bar, with .its long brown back, 

And round and bubbly eyes, 
And the bridge, that hung so high o'er the tide, 
Creaking and swinging from side to side. 

The miller's pretty little wife, 

In the cottage that she loves, — 
Her hand so white, and her step so light, 

And her eyes as brown as th' dove's, 
Her tiny waist, and belt of blue, 
And her hair that almost dazzles you. 

I could paint the White-Hawk tavern, flanked 
With broken arid wind-warped sheds, 

And the rock where the black clouds used to sit, 
And trim their watery heads 

With little sprinkles of shining light, 

Night and morning, morning and night. 

The road, where slow and wearily, 

The dusty teamster came, — 
The sign on its post and the round-faced host, 

And the high arched door, aflame 
With trumpet-flowers, — the well-sweep, high, 
And the flowing water-trough, clos^ by. 



84 BALLADS. 

If I were a painter, and if my hand 

Were cunning, as it is not, 
I could paint you a picture that would stand 

When all the rest were forgot . 
But why should I tell you what it would be 1 
I never shall paint it, nor you ever see. 



^S'f&r^ 2 ^- 



We are the mariners, and God the Sea, 

And though we make false reckonings, and run 

Wide of a righteous course, and are undone, 
Out of his deeps of love, we cannot be. 

For by those heavy strokes we misname ill, 

Through the fierce fire of sin, through tempering doubt. 

Our natures more and more are beaten out 
To perfecter reflections of His will ! 




AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE. 

O good painter, tell me true, 

Has your hand the cunning to draw 
Shapes of things that you never saw ? 

Ay ? Well, here is an order for you. 



Woods and cornfields, a little brown, — 
The picture must not be over-bright, — 
Yet all in the golden and gracious light 
Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. 
Alway and alway, night and morn, 
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn 
Lying between them, not quite sere, 
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, 
When the wind can hardly find breathing-room 

Under their tassels, — cattle near, 
Biting shorter the short green grass, 
And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, 



86 BALLADS. 

With bluebirds twittering all around, — 

(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound !) — 

These, and the house where I was born, 
Low and little, and black and old, 
With children, many as it can hold, 
All at the windows, open wide, — 
Heads and shoulders clear outside, 
And fair young faces all ablush : 

Perhaps you may have seen, some day, 

Roses crowding the self-same way, 
Out of a w T ilding, wayside bush. 

Listen closer. When you have done 

With woods and cornfields and grazing herds, 

A lady, the loveliest ever the sun 
Looked down upon you must paint for me : 
Oh, if I only could make you see 

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, 
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, 
The woman's soul, &nd the angel's face 

That are beaming on me all the while, 
I need not speak these foolish words : 

Yet one word tells you all I would say, — 
She is my mother : you will agree 

That all the rest may be throw r n aw r ay. 

Two little urchins at her knee 
You must paint, sir : one like me, — 
The other with a clearer brow, 



BALLADS. 87 

And the light of his adventurous eyes 

Flashing with boldest enterprise : 
At ten years old he went to sea, — 

God knoweth if he be living now, — 

He sailed in the good ship "Commodore," — 
Nobody ever crossed her track 
To bring us news, and she never came back. 

Ah, 'tis twenty long years, and more 
Since that old ship went out of the bay 

With my great-hearted brother on her deck : 

I watched him till lie shrank to a speck, 
And his face was toward me all the way. 
Bright his hair was, a golden brown, 

The time we stood at our mother's knee : 
That beauteous head, if it did go <Jown, 

Carried sunshine into the sea ! 

Out in the fields one summer night 

We were together, half afraid 

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade 
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far, — 
Loitering till after the low little light 

Of the candle shone through the open door, 
And over the hay-stack's pointed top, 
All of a tremble and ready to drop, 

The first half-hour, the great yellow star, 

That w r e, with staring, ignorant eyes, 
Had often and often watched to see 

Propped and held in its place in the skies 



88 BALLADS. 

By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree, 

Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,- 
Dead at the top, — just one branch full 
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, 

From which it tenderly shook the dew 
Over our heads, w T hen we came to play 
In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day. 

Afraid to go home, Sir ; for one of us bore 
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs, — 
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, 
Not so big as a straw of wheat : 
The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat, 
But cried and cried, till we held her bill, 
So slim and shining, to keep her still. 

At last we stood at our mother's knee. 

Do you think, Sir, if you try, 

You can paint the look of a lie ? 

If you can, pray have the grace 

To put it solely in the face 
Of the urchin that is likest me : 

I think 't was solely mine, indeed : 

But that's no matter, — paint it so ; 

The eyes of our mother — (take good heed) — 
Looking not on the nest-full of eggs, 
Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, 
But straight through our faces down to our lies, 
And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise ! 

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though 

A sharp blade struck through it. 






BALLADS. 



89 



You, Sir, know 
That you on the canvas are to repeat 
Things that are fairest, things most sweet, — 
Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree, — 
The mother, — the lads, with their bird, at her knee 

But, oh, that look of. reproachful woe ! 
High as the heavens your name I'll shout, 
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out. 



12 




90 BALLADS. 



FIFTEEN AND FIFTY, i/ 

Come, darling, put your frown aside f 
I own my fault, 'tis true, 'tis true, 

There is one picture that I hide, 
Even away from you ! 

Why, then, I do not love you ? Nay, 
You wrong me there, my pretty one: 

Remember you are in your May ; 
My Summer days are done. 

My autumn days are come, in truth, 
And blighting frosts begin to fall ; 

You are the sunny light of youth, 
That glorifies it all. 

Even when winter clouds shall break 
In storms, I shall not mind, my dear, 

For you within my heart shall make 
The springtime of the year ! 

In short, life did its best for me, 
When first our paths together ran ; 

But I had lived, you will agree, 
One life, ere yours began. 



BALLADS. 91 

I must have smiled, I must have wept, 
Ere mirth or moan could do you wrong; 

But come, and see the picture, kept 
Hidden away so long ! 

The walk will not be strange nor far, — 
Across the meadow, toward the tree 

From whose thick top one silver star 
Uplifting slow, you see. 

So, darling, we have gained the height 
Where lights and shadows softly meet ; 

Rest you a moment, — full in sight, 
My picture lies complete. 

A hill-side dark, with woods behind, 
A strip of emerald grass before, — 

A homely house ; some trees that blind 
Window, and wall, and door. 

A singing streamlet, — either side 

Bordered with flowers, — geraniums gay, 

And pinks, with red mouths open wide 
For sunshine, all the clay. 

A tasselled cornfield on one hand, 
And on the other, meadows green, 

With angles of bright harvest bend 
Wedged sunnily between. 



92 BALLADS. 

A world of smiling ways and walks, 

The hop- vines twisting through the pales, 

The crimson cups o' the hollyhocks, 
The lilies, in white veils ; 

The porch with morning-glories gay, 
And sunken step, the well-sweep tall, 

The barn, with roof 'twixt black and gray, 
And warpt, wind-shaken wall ; 

The garden with the fence of stone, 
The lane so dusky at the close, 

The door-yard gate all overgrown 
With one wild smothering rose ; 

The honeysuckle that has blown 
His trumpet till his throat is red, 

And the wild swallow, mateless flown 
Under the lonesome shed; 

The corn, with bean-pods showing through. 
The fields that to the sunset lean, 

The crooked paths along the dew, 
Telling of flocks unseen. 

The bird in scarlet-colored coat 

Flying about the apple-tree ; 
The new moon in her shallow boat, 

Sailing alone, you see ; 



BALLADS. 93 

The aspen at the window-pane, — 

The pair of bluebirds on the peach, — 

The yellow waves of ripening grain, — 
You see them all and each. 

The shadows stretching to the door, 
From far-off hills, and nearer trees , 

I cannot show you any more, — 
The landscape holds but these. 

And yet, my darling, after all, 

'T is not my picture you behold ; 
Your house is ruined near to fall, — 

Your flowers are dew and mould. 

I wish that you could only see, 

While the glad garden shines its best, 

The little rose that was to me 
The queen of all the rest. 

The bluebirds, — he with scarlet wings, — 

The silver brook, the sunset glow, 
To me are but the signs of things 

The landscape cannot show. 

That old house was our home — not ours ! 

You were not born — how could it be ? 
That window where you see the flowers, 

Is where she watched for me, 



94 BALLADS. 

So pale, so patient* night by night, 
Her eyes upon this pathway here, 

Until at last I came in sight, — 
Nay, do not frown, my dear, 

That was another world ! and so 
Between us there can be no strife ; 

I was but twenty, you must know, 
And she my baby-wife ! 

Twin violets by a shady brook 

Were like her eyes, — their beauteousness 
Was in a rainy, moonlight look 

Of tears and tenderness. 

Her fingers had a dewy touch ; 

Grace was in all her modest ways ; 
Forgive my praising her so much, — 

She cannot hear my praise. 

Beneath the window where you see 

The trembling, tearful flowers, she lay, 

Her arms as if they reached for me, — 
Her hair put smooth away. 

The closed mouth still smiling sweet, 
The waxen eyelids, drooping low, 

The marriage-slippers on the feet, — 
The marriage-dress of snow ! 



BALLADS. 95 

And still, as in my dreams, I do, 
I kiss the sweet white hands, the eyes ; 

My heart with pain is broken anew, 
My soul with sorrow dies. 

It was, they said, her spirit's birth, — 
That she was gone, a saint to be ; 

Alas ! a poor, pale piece of earth 
Was all that I could see. 

In tears, my darling ! that fair brow 

With jealous shadows overrun ? 
A score of flowers upon one bough 

May bloom as well as one ! 

This ragged bush, from spring to fall, 

Stands here with living glories lit; 
And every flower a-blush, with all 

That doth belong to it ! 

Look on it ! learn the lesson then, — 

No more than we evoke, is ours ! 
The great law holdeth good with men, 

The same as with the flowers. 

And if that lost, that sweet white hand 
Had never blessed me with its light, 

You had not been, you understand, 
More than you are to-night. 



96 BALLADS. 

This foolish pride that women have 
To play upon us, — to enthrall, 

To absorb, doth hinder what they crave, - 
Their being loved at all ! 

Never the mistress of the arts 
They practise on us, still again 

And o'er again, they wring our hearts 
With pain that giveth pain ! 

They make their tyranny a boast, 
And in their petulance will not see 

That he is always bound the most, 
Who in the most is free ! 

They prize us more for what they screen 
From censure, than for what is best ; 

And you, my darling, at fifteen, 
Why, you are like the rest ! 

Your arms would find me now, though I 
Were low as ever guilt can fall ; 

And that, my little love, is why 
I love you, after all ! 

Smiling ! " the pain is worth the cost, 
That wins a homily so wise ? " 

Ah, little tyrant, I am lost, 
When thus you tyrannize. 






BALLADS. 97 



JENNY DUNLEATH. 



/ 



Jenny Dunleath coming back to the town? 
What! coming back here for good, and for all? 
Well, that 's the last thing for Jenny to do, — 
I 'd go to the ends of the earth, — would n't you ? 
Before I 'd come back ! She '11 be pushed to the wall 
Some slips, I can tell her, are never lived down, 
And she ought to know it. It 's really true, 
You think, that she 's coming ? How dreadfully bold ! 
But one don't know what will be done, nowadays, 
And Jenny was never the girl to be moved 
By what the world said of her. What she approved, 
She would do, in despite of its blame or its praise. 

She ought to be wiser by this time — let 's see; 
Why, sure as yon live, she is forty years old ! 
The day I was married she stood up with me, 
And my Kate is twenty : ah yes, it must be 
That Jenny is forty, at least — forty-three, 
It may be, or four. She was older, I know, 
A good deal, when she was my bridesmaid, than I, 
And thai 's twenty years, now, and longer, ago ; 
So if she intends to come back and deny 
13 



98 hALLADS. 

Her age, as 't is likely she will, I can show 
The plain honest truth, by the age of my Kate, . 
And I will, too ! To see an old maid tell a lie, 
Just to seem to be young, is a thing that I hate. 

You thought we were friends ? \No, my dear, not at all ! 

'T is true we were friendly, as friendliness goes, 

But one gets one's friends as one chooses one's clothes, 

And just as the fashion goes out, lets them fall. 

I will not deny we were often together 

About the time Jenny was in her high feather ; • 

And she was a beauty ! No rose of the May 

Looked ever so lovely as she on the day 

I was married. She, somehow, could grace 

Whatever thing touched her. The knots of soft lace 

On her little white shoes, — the gay cap that half hid 

Her womanly forehead, — the bright hair that slid 

Like sunshine adown her bare shoulders, — the gauze 

That rippled about her sweet arms, just because 

'T was Jenny that wore it, — the flower in her belt, — 

No matter what color, 't was fittest, you felt. 

If she sighed, if she smiled, if she played with her fan, 

A sort of religious coquettishness ran 

Through it all, — a bewitching and wildering way, 

All tearfully tender and graciously gay. 

If e'er you were foolish in word or in speech, 

The approval she gave with her serious eyes 

Would make your own foolishness seem to you wise ; 

So all from her magical presence, and each, 






BALLADS. V9 

Went happy away : 't was her art to confer 
A self-love, that ended in your loving her. 

And so she is coming back here ! a mishap 

To her friends, if she have any friends, one would say 

Well, well, she can't take her old place in the lap 

Of holiday fortune : her head must be gray ; 

And those dazzling cheeks ! I would just like to see 

How she looks, if I could, without her seeing me. 

To think of the Jenny Dunleath that I knew, 
A dreary old maid, with nobody to love her, — 
Her hair silver-white and no roof-tree above her, — 
One ought to have pity upon her, — 'tis true! 
But I never liked her; in truth, I was glad 
In my own secret heart when she came to her fall; 
When praise of her meekness was ringing the loudest 
I always would say she was proud as the proudest; 
That meekness was only a trick that she had, — 
She was too proud to seem to be proud, that was all. 

She stood up with me, I was saying : that day 
Was the last of her going abroad for long years ; 
I never had seen, her so bright and so gay, 
Yet, spite of the lightness, I had my own fears 
That all was not well with her : 't was but her pride 
Made her sing the old songs when they asked, her tc 

sing, 
For when it was done with, and we were aside, 



1 00 BALLADS. 

A look wan and weary came over her brow, 

And still I can feel just as if it were now, 

How she slipped up and down on my finger, the ring, 

And so hid her face in my bosom and cried. 

When the fiddlers were come, and young Archibald Mill 
Was dancing with Hetty, I saw how it was ; 
Nor was I misled when she said she was ill, 
For the dews were not standing so thick in the grass 
As the drops on her cheeks. So you never have heard 
How she fell in disgrace with young Archibald ! No ? 
I won't be the first, then, to whisper a word, — 
Poor thing ! if she only repent, let it go ! 

Let it go ! let what go ? My good madam, I pray, 

Whereof do I stand here accused? I would know, — 

I am Jenny Dunleath, that you knew long ago, 

A dreary old maid, and unloved, as you say : 

God keep you, my sister, from knowing such woe ! 

Forty years old, madam, that I agree, 

The roses washed out of my cheeks by the tears ; 

And counting my barren and desolate years 

By the bright little heads dropping over your knee, 

You look on my sorrow with scorn, it appears. 

Well, smile, if you can, as you hold up in sight 
Your matronly honors, for all men to see ; 
But I cannot discern, madam, what there can be 
To move your proud mirth, in the wildness of night 



BALLADS. 101 

Falling round me ; no hearth for mv coming alight, — 
No rosy-red cheeks at the windows for me. 

My love is my shame, — in your love you are crowned, — 

But as we are women, our natures are one ; 

By need of its nature, the dew and the sun 

Belong to the poorest, pale flower o' the ground. 

And think you that He who created the heart 

Has struck it all helpless and hopeless apart 

From these lesser works ? Nay, I hold He has bound 

Our rights with our needs in so sacred a knot, 

We cannot undo them with any mere lie; 

Nay, more, my proud lady, — the love you have got, 

May belong to another as dreary as I ! 

You have all the world's recognition, — your bond, — 

But have you that better right, lying beyond ? — 

Agreement with Conscience? — that sanction whereby 

You can live in the face of the crudest scorns? 

Ay, set your bare bosom against the sharp thorns 

Of jealousy, hatred, — against all the harms 

Bad fortune can gather, — and say, With these arms 

About me, I stand here to live and to die ! 

I take you to keep for my patron and saint, 

And you shall be bound by that sweetest constraint 

Of a liberty wide as the love that you give ; 

And so to the glory of God we will live, 

Through health and through sickness, dear lover and 

friend, 
Through light and through darkness, — through all, tc 

the end! 



102 BALLADS. 

Let it go ! Let what go ? Make me answer, I pray, 
You were speaking just now of some terrible fall, — 
My love for young Archibald Mill, — is that all? 
I loved him with all my young heart, as you say, — 
Nay, what is more, madam, I love him to-day, — 
My cheeks thin and wan, and my hair gray on gray! 
And so I am bold to come back to the town, 
In hope that at last I may lay my bones down, 
And have the green grasses blow over my face, 
Among the old hills where my love had its birth ! 
If love were a trifle, the morning to grace, 
And fade when the night came, why, what were it 
worth ? 

He is married ! and I am come hither too late ? 

Your vision misleads you, — so pray you, untie 

That knot from your sweet brow, — I come here to die, 

And not to make moan for the chances of fate ! 

I know that all love that is true is divine, 

And when this low incident, Time, shall have sped, 

I know the desire of my soul shall be mine, — 

That, weary, or wounded, or dying, or dead, 

The end is secure, so I bear the estate — 

Despised of the world's favored women — and wait. 



HALL ADS. 103 



TRICKSEY'S RING. " 

what a day it was to us, — 
My wits were upside down, 

When cousin Joseph Nicholas 
Came visiting from town ! 

His curls they were so smooth and bright, 
His frills they were so fine, 

1 thought perhaps the stars that night 
Would be ashamed to shine. 

But when the dews had touched the grass, 
They came out, large and small, 

As if our cousin Nicholas 
Had not been there at all ! 

Our old house never seemed to me 

So poor and mean a thing 
As then, and just because that he 

Was come a- visiting ! 

I never thought the sun prolonged 

His light a single whit 
Too much, till then, nor thought he wronged 

My face, by kissing it. 



104 BALLADS. 

But now I sought to pull my dress 

Of faded homespun down, 
Because my cousin Nicholas 

Would see my feet were brown. 

The butterflies — bright airy things — 

From off the lilac buds 
1 scared, for having on their wings 

The shadows of the w T oods. 

I thought my straight and jet black hair 

Was almost a disgrace, 
Since Joseph Nicholas had fair 

Smooth curls about his face. 

I wished our rosy window sprays 
Were laces, dropping down, 

That he might think we knew the ways 
Of rich folks in the town. 

I wished the twittering swallow had 

A finer tune to sing, 
Since such a stylish city lad 

Was come a-visiting. 

I wished the hedges, as they swayed, 

Were each a solid wall, 
And that our grassy lane, were made 

A market street withal. 



BALLADS. 105 

I wished the drooping heads of rye, 

Set full of silver dews, 
Were silken tassels all to tie 

The ribbons of his shoes ! 

And when, by homely household slight, 

They called me Tricksey True, 
I thought my cheeks would blaze, in spite 

Of all that I could do. 

Tricksey J — that name would surely be 

A shock to ears polite ; 
In short I thought that nothing we 

Could say or do was right. 

For injured pride I could have wept, 

Until my heart and I 
Fell musing how my mother kept 

So equable and high. 

She did not cast her eyelids down, 

Ashamed of being poor ; 
To hor a gay young man from town* 

Was no discomfiture. 

She reverenced honor's sacred laws 

As much, ay more than he, 
And was not put about because 

He had more gold than she ; 
14 



106 BALLADS. 

But held her house beneath a hand 

As steady and serene, 
As though it were a palace, and 

As though she were a queen. 

And when she set our silver cup 

Upon the cloth of snow, 
For Nicholas, I lifted up 

My timid eyes, I know ; 

And saw a ring, as needs I must, 
Upon his finger shine ; 

how I longed to have it just 
A minute upon mine ! 

1 thought of fairy folk that led 
Their lives in sylvan shades, 

And brought fine things, as I had read, 
To little rustic maids. 

And so I mused within my heart, 
How I would search about 

The fields and woodlands, for my part, 
Till I should spy them out. 

And so when down the western sky 
The sun had dropped at last, 

Right softly and right cunningly 
From out the house I passed. 



BALLADS. 107 

It was as if awake I dreamed, 

All Nature was so sweet 
The small round dandelions seemed 

Like stars beneath my feet. 

Fresh greenness as I went along 

The grass did seem to take, 
And birds beyond the time of song 

Kept singing for my sake. 

The dew o'erran the lily's cup, 

The ground-moss shone so well, 
That if the sky were down or up, 

Was hard for me to tell. 

I never felt my heart to sit 

So lightly on its throne ; 
Ah, who knew what would come of it, 

With fairy folk alone ! 

An hour, — another hour went by, 

All harmless arts I tried, 
And tried in< vain, and wearily 

My hopes within me died. 

No tent of moonshine, and no ring 

Of dancers could I find, — 
The fairy rich folk and their king 

For once would be unkind ! 



108 BALLADS. 

My spirit, nameless fear oppressed ; 

My courage went adrift, * 
As all out of the low dark west 

The clouds began to lift. 

I lost my way within the wood, — 

The path I could not guess, 
When, Heaven be praised, before me stood 

My cousin Nicholas ! 

Right tenderly within his arm 
My shrinking hand he drew ; 

He spoke so low, " these damps will harm 
My little Tricksey True." 

I know not how it was : my shame 
In new delight was drowned ; 

His accent gave my rustic name 
Almost a royal sound. 

He bent his cheek against my face, — 

He whispered in my ear, 
" Why came you to this dismal place ? 

Tell me, my little dear ! " 

Betwixt the boughs that o'er us hung 

The light began to fall ; 
His praises loosed my silent tongue, — 

At last T told him all. 



BALLADS. 109 

I felt his lips my forehead touch ; 

I shook and could not stand ; 
The ring I coveted so much 

Was shining on my hand ! 

We talked about the little elves 

And fairies of the grove, 
And then we talked about ourselves, 

And then we talked of love. 

'T was at the ending of the lane, — 

The garden yet to pass, 
I offered back his ring again 

To my good Nicholas. 

" Dear Tricksey, don't you understand, 

You foolish little thing," 
He said, " that I must have the hand, 

As well as have the ring ? " 

" To-night — just now ! I pray you wait ! 

The hand is little worth ! " 
" Nay darling — now ! we 're at the gate ! $ 

And so he had them both ! 



:-&»%& 



r?X 



£&52p£i£ 



ipsjBtife 



EIGHBORED by a maple wood, 

Dim and dusty, old and low ; 
' Thus our little schoolhouse stood, - 
Two and twenty years ago. 






?o> 



? On the roof of clapboards, dried 
Smoothly in the summer heat, 
j \ Of the hundred boys that tried, 
Never one could keep his feet. 



Near the door the cross-roads were, 
A stone's throw, perhaps, away, 

And to read the sign-board there, 
Made a pastime every day. 

He who turned the index down, 
So it pointed on the sign 

To the nearest market-town, 

Was, we thought, a painter fine ; 



And the childish wonder rose, 
As we gazed with puzzled looks 

On the letters, good as those 
Printed in our spelling-books. 



BALLADS. 11 1 

Near it was a well, — how deep I 

With its bucket warped and dry, 
Broken curb, and leaning sweep, 

And a plum-tree growing by, 

Which, with low and tangly top, 
Made the grass so bright and cool, 

Travellers would sometimes stop, 
For a half-hour's rest — in school, 

Not an eye could keep the place 

Of the lesson then, — intent 
Each to con the stranger's face, 

And to see the road he went. 

Scattered are we far and wide, — 

Careless, curious children then ; 
Wanderers some, and some have died ; 

Some, thank God, are honest men. 

But, as playmates, large or small, 

Noisy, thoughtful, or demure, 
I can see them, one and ajl, 

The great world in miniature. 

Common flowers, with common names, 
Filled the woods and meadows round : 

Dandelions with their flames 

Smothered flat against the ground ; 



U2 BALLADS. 

Mullein stocks, with gray braids set 
Full of yellow ; thistles, speared ; 

Violets, purple near to jet ; 

Crowfoot, and the old-man's-beard. 

And along the dusty way, 

Thick as prints of naked feet, 

Iron-weeds and fennel gay 

Blossomed in the summer heat. 

Hedges of wild blackberries, 
Pears, and honey-locusts tall, 

Spice-wood, and " good apple-trees/' 
Well enough we knew them all. 



% & 



But the ripest blackberries, 

Nor the mulleins topped with gold. 
Peach nor honey-locust trees, 

Nor the flowers, when all are told, 

Pleased us like the cabin, near 

Which a silver river ran, 
And where lived, for many a year, 

Christopher, the crazy man. 

Hair as white as snow he had, 
Mixing with a beard that fell 

Down his breast ; if he were mad, 
Passed our little wits to tell. 



BALLADS. 113 

In his eyes' unfa thorn ed blue 

Burned a ray so clear and bright, 

Oftentimes we said we knew 
It would shame the candlelight. 

Mystic was the life he led ; 

Picking herbs in secret nooks, — 
Finding, as the old folks said, 

" Tongues in trees and books in brooks/ 7 

Waking sometimes in the gloom 

Of the solemn middle night, 
He had seen his narrow room 

Full of angels dressed in white ; 

So he said in all good faith, 

And one day, with tearful eye, 
Told us that he heard old Death 

Sharpening his scythe, close by. 

Whether it were prophecy, 

Or a dream, I cannot say ; 
But good little Emily 

Died the evening of that day. 

In the woods, where up and down 

We had searched, and only seen 
AdderVtongue, with dull, dead brown, 

Mottled with the heavy green ; 
15 



114 BALLADS. 

May-apples, or wild birds sweet, 
Going through the shadows dim, 

Spirits, with white, noiseless feet, 

Walked, he said, and talked with him^ 

44 What is all the toiling for, 

And the spinning?" he would say; 

44 See the lilies at my door, — 
Never dressed a queen as they. 

44 He who gives the ravens food 
For our wants as well will care ; 

O my children ! He is good, — 
Better than your fathers are." 

So he lived from year to year, 
Never toiling, mystery-clad, — 

Spirits, if they did appear, 
Beino; all the friends he had. 



o 



Alternating seasons sped, 

And there fell no night so rough, 
But his cabin fire, he said, 

Made it light and warm enough. 

Soft and slow our steps would be, 

As the silver river ran, 
Days when we had been to see 

Christopher, the crazy man. 



BALLADS. 

Soft and slow, to number o'er 
The delights he said he had; 

Wondering always, more and more, 
Whether he were wise or mad. 

On a hill-side next the sun, 

Where the schoolboys quiet keep, 

And to seed the clovers run, 
He is lying, fast asleep. 

But at last, (to Heaven be praise,) 

Gabriel his bed will find, 
Giving love for lonely days, 

And for visions, his right mind, p 

Sometimes, when I think about 
How he lived among the flowers, 

Gently going in and out, 

With no cares nor fretful hours, — 



115 



Of the deep serene of light, 

In his blue, unfathomed eyes, — 

Seems the childish fancy right, 
That could half believe him wise. 



nt> BALLADS. 



THE FERRY OF GALLAWAY. 

In the stormy waters of Gallaway 

My boat had been idle the livelong day, 

Tossing and tumbling to and fro, 

For the wind was high and the tide was low. 

The tide was low and the wind was high, 
And we were heavy, my heart and I, 
For not a traveller all the day 
Had crossed the ferry of Gallaway. 

At set o' th' sun, the clouds outspread 
Like wings of darkness overhead, 
When, out o' th' west, my eyes took heed 
Of a lady, riding at full speed. 

The hoof-strokes struck on the flinty hill 
Like silver ringing on silver, till 
I saw the veil in her fair hand float, 
And flutter a signal for my boat. 

The waves ran backward as if 'ware 
Of a presence more than mortal fair, 
And my little craft leaned down and lay 
With her side to th' sands o' th' Gallaway. 



BALLADS. 117 

11 Haste, good boatman ! haste ! " she cried, 
" And row me over the other side ! " 
And she stript from her finger the shining ring, 
And gave it me for the ferrying. 

" Woe 's me ! my Lady, I may not go, 
For the wind is high and th' tide is low, 
And rocks like dragons lie in the wave, — 
Slip back on your finger the ring you gave ! " 

" Nay, nay ! for the rocks will be melted down, 
And the waters, they never will let me drown, 
And the wind a pilot will prove to thee, 
For my dying lover, he waits for me ! " 

Then bridle-ribbon and silver spur 
She put in my hand, but I answered her : 
" The wind is high and the tide is low, — 
I must not, dare not, and will not go ! " 

Her face grew deadly white with pain, 
And she took her champing steed by th' mane, 
And bent his neck to th' ribbon and spur 
That lay in my hand, — but I answered her : 

s< Though you should proffer me twice and thrice 
Of ring and ribbon and steed, the price, — 
The leave of kissing your lily-like hand ! 
I never could row you safe to th' land." 



US BALLADS. 

" Then God have mercy ! " she faintly cried, 
" For my lover is dying the other side ! 
O cruel, O cruellest Gallaway, 
Be parted, and make me a path, I pray ! " 

Of a sudden, the sun shone large and bright 
As if he were staying away the night, 
And the rain on the river fell as sweet 
As the pitying tread of an angel's feet. 

And spanning the water from edge to edge 
A rainbow stretched like a golden bridge, 
And I put the rein in her hand so fair,, 
And she sat in her saddle, th' queen o' th' air. 

And over the river, from edge to edge, 

She rode on the shifting and shimmering bridge, 

And landing safe on the farther side, — 

" Love is thy conqueror, Death ! " she cried. 



-c^JXdOo- 



Our unwise purposes are wisely crossed ; 

Being small ourselves, we must essay small things : 
Th' adventurous mote, with wide, outwearied wings 

Crawling across a water-drop, is lost. 



BALLADS. 11 ( J 



REVOLUTIONARY STORY. 

" Good mother, what quaint legend are you reading, 

In that old-fashioned book ? 
Beside your door I 've been this half-hour pleading 

All vainly for one look. 

" About your chair the little birds fly bolder 

Than in the woods they fly, 
With heads dropt slantwise, as if o'er your shoulder 

They read as they went by ; 

" Each with his glossy collar ruffling double 

Around his neck so slim, 
Even as with that atmosphere of trouble, 

Through which our blessings swim. 

" Is it that years throw on us chillier shadows, 

The longer time they run, 
That, with your sad face fronting yonder meadows, 

You creep into the sun ? 

" I '11 sit upon the ground and hear your story." 

Sadly she shook her head, 
And, pushing back the thin, white veil of glory 

'Twixt her and heaven, she said : 



120 BALLADS. 

"Ah! wondering child, I knew not of your pleading; 

My thoughts were chained, indeed, 
Upon my book, and yet what you call reading 

I have no skill to read. 

" There was a time once when I had a lover ; 

Why look you in such doubt? 
True, I am old now — ninety years and over:" 

A crumpled flower fell out - 

From 'twixt the book-leaves. " Seventy years they 've 
pressed it: 

'T was like a living flame, 
When he that plucked it, by the plucking blessed it : M 

I knew the smile that came, 

And flickered on her lips in wannish splendor, 

Was lighted at that flower, 
For even yet its radiance, faint and tender, 

Reached to its primal hour. 

14 God bless you ! seventy years since it was gathered ? ' 

44 Ay, I remember w T ell ; " 
And in her old hand, palsy-struck, and withered, 

She held it up to smell. 

44 And is it true, as poets say, good -mother, 

That love can never die ? 
A.nd that for all it gives unto another 

It grows the richer?" "Ay, 



BALLADS. 121 

" The wild wall-brier, from spring till summer closes, 

All the great world around, 
Hangs by its thorny arms to keep its roses 

From off the low, black ground ; 

kw And love is like it : sufferings but try it ; 

Death but evokes the might 
That, all too mighty to be thwarted by it, 

Breaks through into th« light." 

kt Then frosty age may wrap about its bosom 

The light of fires long dead ? " 
Kissing the piece of dust she called a blossom. 

She shut the book, and said : 

u You see yon ash-tree with its thick leaves, blowing 

The blue side out? (Great Power, 
Keep its head green !) My sweetheart, in the mowing 

Beneath it found my flower. 

* 

" A mile off all that day the shots were flying, 

And mothers, from the door, 
Looked for the sons, who, on their faces lying, 

Would come home never more. 

u Across the battle-field the dogs went whining : 

I saw, from where I stood, 
Horses with quivering flanks, and strained eyes, shining 

Like thin skins full of blood. 
16 



122 BALLADS. 

" Brave fellows we had then : there was my neighbor, — 

The British lines he saw ; 
Took his old scythe and ground it to a sabre, 

And mowed them down like straw ! 

u And there were women, then, of giant spirit, — 

Nay, though the blushes start, 
The garments their degenerate race inherit 

Hang loose about the heart. 

" Where was I, child? how is my story going?" 

" Why, where by yonder tree 
With leaves so rough your sweetheart, in the mowing, 

Gathered your flower ! " • " Ah me I 

" My poor lad dreamed not of the red-coat devil, 

That, just for pastime, drew 
To his bright epaulet his musket level, 

And shot him through and through. 

" Beside him I was kneeling the next minute ; 

From the red grass he took 
The shattered hand up, and the flower was in it 

You saw within my book." 

" He died." " Then you have seen some stormy 
weather ? " 

" Ay, more of foul than fair ; 
And all the snows we should have shared together 

Have fallen on my hair." 



BALLADS. 



123 



" And has your life been worth the living, mother, 

With all its sorrows ? " " Ay, 
I 'd live it o'er again, were there no other, 

For this one memory." 

1 answered soft, — I felt the place was holy, — 

One maxim stands approved : 
" They know the best of life, however lowly, 

Who ever have been loved." 



4 



Just here and there with some poor little ray 
Of lovely sort, the web of life is crossed ; 

Where a good impulse found in action play, — 
Where a true word was said: the rest is lost 



124 BALLADS. 



Hope in our hearts doth only stay 

Like a traveller at an inn, 
Who riseth up at the break of day 

His journey to begin. 

Faith, when her soul has known the blight 

Of noisy doubts and fears, 
Goes thenceforward clad *in the lio;ht 

Of the still eternal years. 

Truth is Truth : no more in the prayers 

Of the righteous Pharisee ; 
No less in the humblest sinner that wears 

This poor mortality. 

But Love is greatest of all : no loss 
Can shadow its face with gloom, — 

As glorious hanging on the cross 
As breaking out of the tomb. 



Ctjcmgirts anti Cfjeortesi, 




THANKSGIVING. 

For the sharp conflicts I have had with sin, 

Wherein 
I have been wedged and pressed 
Nigh unto death, I thank Thee, with the rest 
Of my befallings, Lord, of brighter guise, 

And named by mortals, good, 
Which to my hungry heart have given food, 

Or costly entertainment to my eyes. 

For I can only see, 
With spirit truly reconciled to Thee, 
In the sad evils with our lives that blend, 

A means, and not an end: 



Since Thou wert free 
To do thy will — knewest the bitter worth 
Of sin, and all its possibility, 

Ere that, by thy decree, 



128 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

The ancient silence of eternity 

Was broken by the music of man's birth. 

Theiefore I lay my brows 
Discrowned of youth, within thy gracious hands, 
Or rise while davbreak dew is on the boughs 
To strew thy road with sweets, for thy commands 
Do make the current of my life to run 

Through lost and cavernous ways, 

Bordered with cloudy days, 
In its slow working out into the sun. 

Hills, clap your hands, and all ye mountains, shout ; 
Hie, fainting hart, to where the waters flow ; 
Children of men, put off your fear and doubt ; 
The Lord who chasteneth, loveth you, for, lo ! 
The wild herb's wounded stalk He cares about, 
And shields the ravens when the rough winds blow ; 
He sendeth dow r n the drop of shining dew 

To light the daisy from her house of death, 
And shall He, then, forget the like of you, 

O ye, of little faith ! 

He speaketh to the willing soul and heart 
By dreams, and in the visions of the night, 

And happy is the man who, for his part, 
Rejoiceth in the light 

Of all His revelations, whether found 

In the old books, so sacredly upbound, 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 129 

And clasped with golden clasps, or whether writ 
Through later instillations of His power, 

Where he that runneth still perceiveth it 
Illuminating every humble flower 

That springeth from the ground. 

His testimony all the time is sure ; 

The smallest star that keepeth in the night 

His silver candle bright, 
And every deed of good that anywhere 
Maketli the hands of holy women white ; 
W\ sweet religious work, all earnest prayer, 
Of uttered, or unutterable speech ; 
Whatever things are peaceable and pure, 

Whatever things are right, 
These are His witnesses, ay, all and each ! 

Thrice happy is the man who doth obey 

The Lord of Love, through love ; who fears to break 

The righteous law for th' law's righteous sake : 

And who, by daily use of blessings, gives 

Thanks for the daily blessings he receives ; 

His spirit grown so reverent, it dares 

Cast the poor shows of reverence away, 

Believing they 
More glorify the Giver, who partake 
Of His good gifts, than they who fast and make 
Burnt offerings and Pharisaic prayers. 
17 



130 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

The wintry snows that blind 
The air, and blight what things were glorified 
By summer's reign, we do not think unkind 
When that we see them changed, afar and wide, 
To rain, that, fretting in the rose's face, 

Brings out a softer grace, 
And makes the troops of rustic daffodils 
Shake out their yellow skirts along the hills, 
And all the valleys blush from side to side. 

And as we climb the stair 
Of rough and ugly fortune, by the props 
Of faith and charity, and hope and prayer, 
To the serene and beauteous mountain-tops 
Of our best human possibility, 
Where haunts the spirit of eternity, 
The world below looks fair, — ' 
Its seeming inequalities subdued, 
And level, all, to purposes of good. 

I thank thee, Gracious Lord, 

For the divine award 
Of strength that helps me up the heavy heights 
Of mortal sorrow, where, through tears forlorn, 
My eyes get glimpses of the authentic lights 

Of love's eternal morn. 

For thereby do I trust 
That our afflictions spring not from the dust, 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 131 

And that they are not sent 

In arbitrary chastisement, 
Nor as avengers to put out the light 
And let our souls loose in some damne*d night 
That holds the balance of thy glory, just ; 
But rather, that as lessons they are meant, 
And as the fire tempers the iron, so 

Are we refined by woe. 

I thank Thee for my common blessings, still 

Rained through thy will 

Upon my head ; the air . 
That knows so many tunes which grief beguile, 
Breathing its light love to me everywhere, 
And that will still be kissing all the while. 

I thank Thee that my childhood's vanished days 

Were cast in rural ways, 
Where I beheld, with gladness ever new, 

That sort of vagrant dew 
Which lodges in the beggarly tents of such 
Vile weeds as virtuous plants disdain to touch, 
And with rough-bearded burs, night after night, 
ITpgathered by the morning, tender and true, 

Into her clear, chaste light. 

Such ways I learned to know 
That free will cannot go 
Outside of mercy ; learned to bless His name 



1S2 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Whose revelations, ever thus renewed 
Along the varied year, in field and wood, 
His loving care proclaim. 

I thank Thee that the grass and the red rose 

Do what they can to tell 
How spirit through all forms of matter flows ; 
For every thistle by the common way 
Wearing its homely beauty, — for each spring 
That sweet and homeless, runneth where it will, ■ 

For night and day, 
For the alternate seasons, — everything 
Pertaining to life's marvellous miracle. 

Even for the lowly flower 
That, living, dwarfed and bent 
Under some beetling rock, in gloom profound, 
Far from her pretty sisters of the ground, 

And shut from sun and shower, 
Seemeth endowed with human discontent. 

Ah ! what a tender hold 
She taketh of us in our own despite, — 

A sadly-solemn creature, 

Crooked, despoiled of nature, 
Leaning from out the shadows, dull and cold, 
To lay her little white face in the light. 

The chopper going by her rude abode, 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 13S 

Thinks of his own rough hut, his old wife's smile, 
And of the bare young feet 
That run through th' frost to meet 
His coming, and forgets the weary load 
Of sticks that bends his shoulders down the while. 

I thank thee, Lord, that Nature is so wise, 
So capable of painting in men's eyes 

Pictures whose airy hues 

Do blend and interfuse 
With all the darkness that about us lies, — 

That clearly in our hearts 

Her law she writes, 
Reserving cunning past our mortal arts, 
Whereby she is avenged for all her slights. 

And I would make thanksgiving 

For the sweet, double living, 
That gives the pleasures that have passed away, 
The sweetness and the sunshine of to-day. 

I see the furrows ploughed and see them planted, 
See the young cornstalks rising green and fair ; 

Mute things are friendly, and I am acquainted 
With all the luminous creatures of the air ; 

And with the cunning workers of the ground 

That have their trades born with them, and with all 
The insects, large and small, 

That fill the Summer with a wave of sound. 



134 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

I watch the wood-bird line 
Her pretty nest, with eyes that never tire, 
And watch the sunbeams trail their wisps of fire 
Along the bloomless bushes, till they shine. . 

The violet, gathering up her tender blue 

From th' dull ground, is a good sight to see ; 
And it delighteth me 
To have the mushroom push his round head through 

The dry and brittle stubble, as I pass, 
His smooth and shining coat, half rose half fawn, 
But just put on ; 
And to have April slip her showery grass 
Under my feet, as she was used to do, 
In the dear Spring- times gone. 

I make the brook, my Nile, 

And hour by hour beguile, 

Tracking its devious course 
Through briery banks to its mysterious source, 
That I discover, always, at my ^ill, — 

A little silver star, 
Under the shaggy forehead of some hill, 

From travelled ways afar. 

Forgetting wind and flood, 
I build my house of unsubstantial sand, 
Shaping the roof upon my double hand, 
And setting up the dry and sliding grains, 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 135 

With infinite pains, 

In the similitude 

Of beam and rafter, — then 
Where to the ground the dock its broad leaf crooks, 

I hunt long whiles to find the little men 
That I have read of in my stoiy-books. 

Often, in lawless wise, 
Some obvious work of duty I delay, 

Taking my fill 

Of an uneasy liberty, and still 

Close shutting up my eyes, 
As though it were not given me to see 
The avenging ghost of opportunity 

Thus slighted, far away. 



I linger when I know 



That I should forward go ; 
Now, haply for the katydid's wild shrill, 

Now listening to the low, 
Dull noise of mill-wheels — counting, now, the row 
Of clouds about the shoulder of the hill. 

My heart anew rejoices 

In th' old familiar voices 
That come back to me like a lullaby ; 

Now 'tis the church-bell's call, 
And now a teamster's whistle, — now, perhaps, 

The silvery lapse 



136 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Of waters in among the reeds that meet ; 

And now, down-dropping to a whispery fall, 
Some milkmaid, chiding with love's privilege, 

Through the green wall 

© © 

Of the dividing hedo;e, 

© © 7 

And the so sadly eloquent reply 

Of the belated cow-boy, low and sweet. 

I see, as in a dream, 

The farmer plodding home behind his team, 
With all the tired shadows following, 
And see him standing in his threshing-floor, 
The hungry cattle gathered in a ring 

About the great barn-door. 

I see him in the sowing, 
And see him in the mowing, 
The air about him thick with gray-winged moths ; 
The day's work nearly over, 

And the long; meadow ridded with double swaths 

© © 

Of sunset-light and clover. 

© 

When falls the time of solemn Sabbath rest, 

In all he has of best 
I see him going (for he never fails) 
To church, in either equitable hand 
A shining little one, and all his band 
Trooping about him like a flock of quails. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 137 

With necks bowed low, and hid to half their length 
Under the jutting load of new-made hay, 
I see the oxen give their liberal strength 

Day after day, 

And see the mower stay 
His scythe, and leave a patch of grass to spread 

Its shelter round the bed 
Of the poor frighted ground-bird in his way. 

I see the joyous vine, 
And see the wheat set up its rustling spears, 
And see the Sun with golden fingers sign 

The promise of full ears. 

I see the slender Moon 
Time after time grow old and round in th' face. 
And see the Autumn take the Summer's place, 

And shake the ripe nuts down, 
In their thick, bitter hulls of green and brown, 
To make the periods of the school-boy's tune ; 
I see the apples, with their russet cheeks 

Shaming the wealth of June ; 
And see the bean-pods, gay with purple freaks, 
And all the hills with yellow leaves o'erblown, 
As through the fading woods I walk alone, 

And hear the wind o'erhead 
Touching the joyless boughs and making moan, 

Like some old crone, 
Who on her withered fingers counts her dead. 
18 



iy» THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

1 hear the beetle's hum, and see the gnats 
Bagging along the air in strings of jet, 
And from their stubs I see the weak-eyed bats 
Flying an hour before the Sun is set. 

Picture on picture crowds, 
And by the gray and priestlike silence led, 
Comes the first star through evening's steely gates 

And chides the day to bed 
Within the ruddy curtains of the clouds ; 

So gently com'st thou, Death, 

To him who w r aits, 
In the assurance of our blessed faith, 
To be acquainted with thy quiet arms, 

His good deeds, great and small, 

Builded about him like a silver wall, 
And bearing back the deluge of alarms. 

The mother doth not tenderer appear 
When, from her heart her tired darling laid, 
She trims his cradle all about witli shade, 
And will not kiss his sleepy eyes for fear. 

I see the windows of the homestead bright 

With the warm evening-light, 

And by the winter-fire 

I see the gray-haired sire 

Serenely sitting, 
Forgetful of the work-day toil and care, 
The old wife by his elbow, at her knitting ; 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 139 

The cricket on the hearth-stone singing shrill, 
And the spoiled darling of the house at will 

Climbing the good man's chair, 

A furtive glimpse to catch 
Of her fair face in his round silver watch, 
That she in her high privilege must wear, 

And listen to the music that is in it, 

Though only for a minute. 

I thank thee, Lord, for every saddest cross ; 

Gain comes to us through loss, 

The while we go, 
Blind travellers holding by the wall of time, 

And seeking out through woe 
The things that are eternal and sublime. 

Ah ! sad are they of whom no poet writes 
Nor ever any story-teller hears, — 
The childless mothers, who on lonesome nights 
Sit by their fires and weep, having the chores 
Done for the day, and time enough to see 

All the wide floors 
Swept clean of playthings : they, as needs must be, 

Have time enough for tears. 

But there are griefs more sad 
Than ever any childless mother had, — 
5fou know them, who do smother Nature's cries 
Under poor masks 



140 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Of smiling, slow despair, — 
Who put your white and unadorning hair 
Out of your way, and keep at homely tasks, 
Unblest with any praises of men's eyes, 
Till Death comes to you with his piteous care, 
And to unmarriageable beds you go, 
Saying, " It is not much ; 't is well, if so 

We only be made fair 
And looks of love await us when we rise/' 

My cross is not as hard as theirs to bear, 
And yet alike to me are storms, or calms ; 

My life's young joy, 

The brown-cheeked farmer-boy, 
Who led the daisies with him like his lambs, — 
Carved his sweet picture on my milking-pail, 
And cut my name upon his thrashing-flail, 
One day stopped singing at his plough ; alas ! 
Before that summer-time was gone, the grass 
Had choked the path which to the sheep-field led, 
Where I had watched him tread 

So oft on evening's trail, — 
A shining oat-sheaf balanced on his head, 

And nodding to the gale. 

Rough wintry weather came, and when it sped, 

The emerald wave 
Swelling above my little sweetheart's grave, 
With such bright, bubbly flowers was set about, 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 141 

I thought he blew them out, 
And so took comfort that he was not dead. 

For I was of a rude and ignorant crew, 
And hence believed whatever things I saw 
Were the expression of a hidden law ; 
And, with a wisdom wiser than I knew, 

Evoked the simple meanings out of things 

By childlike questionings. 

And he they named with shudderings of fear 
Had never, in his life, been half so near 
As when I sat all day with cheeks unkissed, 
And listened to the* whisper, very low, 
That said our love above death's wave of woe 
Was joined together like the seamless mist. 

God's yea and nay 

Are not so far away, 
I said, but I can hear them when I please : 

Nor could I understand 
Their doubting faith, who only touch His hand 
x\cross the blind, bewildeitng centuries. 

And often yet, upon the shining track 

Of the old faith, come back 
My childish fancies, never quite subdued ; 
And when the sunset shuts up in the wood 
The whispery sweetness of uncertainty, 



112 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

And Night, with misty locks that loosely drop . 
About his ears, brings rest, a welcome boon, 
Playing his pipe with many a starry stop 
That makes a golden snarling in his tune ; 

I see my little lad 
Under the leafy shelter of the boughs, 
Driving his noiseless, visionary cows, 
Clad in a beauty I alone can see : 

Laugh, you, who never had 
Your dead come back, but do not take from me 
The harmless comfort of my foolish dream, 

That these, our mortal eyes, 
Which outwardly reflect the earth and skies 

Do introvert upon eternity : 

And that the shapes you deem 

Imaginations, just as clearly fall ; 

Each from its own divine original, 

And through some subtle element of light, 

Upon the inward, spiritual eye, 

As do the things which round about them lie, 

Gross and material, on the external sight. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES 143 



THE BRIDAL VEIL. 

We 're married, they say, and you think you have 

won me, — 
Well, take this white veil from my head, and look on me : 
Here 's matter to vex you, and matter to grieve you, 
Here 's doubt to distrust you, and faith to believe you, — 
I am all as you see, common earth, common dew ; 
Be wary, and mould me to roses, not rue ! 

Ah ! shake out the filmy thing, fold after fold, 
And see if you have me to keep and to hold, — 
Look close on my heart — see the worst of its sinning — 
It is not yours to-day for the yesterday's winning — 
The past is not mine — I am too proud to borrow — 
You must grow to new heights if I love you to-morrow. 

• 
We 're married! I 'm plighted to hold up your praises, 
As the turf at your feet does its handful of daisies ; 
That way lies my honor, — my pathway of pride, 
But, mark you, if greener grass grow either side, 
I shall know it, and keeping in body with you, 
Shall walk in my spirit with feet on *-he dew ! 



1.44 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

We 're married ! Oh, pray that our love do not fail ! 
I have wings flattened down and hid under my veil : 
The}' are subtle as light — you can never undo them, 
And swift in their flight — you can never pursue them, 
And spite of all clasping, and spite of all hands, 
[ can slip like a shadow, a dream, from your hands. 

Nay, call me not cruel, and fear not to take me, 

I am yours for my lifetime, to be what you make 

me, — 
To wear my white veil for a sign, or a cover, 
As you shall be proven my lord, or my lover ; 
A cover for peace that is dead, or a token 
Of bliss that can never be written or spoken. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 145 



THE SPECIAL DARLING 

Along the grassy lane one day, 
Outside the dull old-fashioned town, 

A dozen children were at play ; 
From noontide till the even-fall, 

Curly-heads flaxen and curly-heads brown 

Were busily bobbing up and down 
Behind the blackberry-wall. 

And near these merry-makers wild 

A piteous little creature was, 
With face unlike the face of a child, — 

Eyes fixed, and seeming frozen still, 
And legs all doubled up in th' grass, 

Disjointed from his will. 

No dream deceived his dreary hours, 

Nor made him merry nor made him grave; 

He did not hear the children call, 

Tumbling under the blackberry-wall, 
With shoulders white with flowers ; 

But sat with great wide eyes one way, 

And body limberly asway, 

Like a water-plant in a wave. 

He did not hear the little stir 

The ants made, working in their hills, 



140 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Nor see the pale, gray daffodils 
Lifting about him their dull points, 

N )T yet the curious grasshopper 
Transport his green and angular joints 

From bush to bush. Poor simple boy, — 
His senses cheated of their birth, 
He might as well have grown in th' earth, 

For all he knew of joy. 

Near wnere tne children took their fill 

Of play, outside the dull old town, 
And neighbored by a wide-flanked hill, 

Where mists like phantoms up and down 
Moved all the time, a homestead was, 

With window toward the plot of grass 
Where sat tms child, and oft and again 

Tender ey^s peered through the pane, 
Whose glances still were dim, 

Till leaping over the blackberry-wall, 
Curly-heads flaxen, brown and all, 

They rested at last on him. 

Ah, who shall say but that such love 
Is the type of His who made us all, 

And that from the Kingdom up above 
The eyes that note the sparrow's fall, 
O'er the incapable, weak and small, 

Watch with tenderest care : 

Such is my hope and prayer. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 147 



A DREAM OF THE WEST. 

Sunset ! a hush is in the air, — 

Their gray old heads the mountains bare, 

As if the winds were saying prayer. 

The woodland, with its broad, green wing, 
Shuts up the insect-whispering, 
And lo ! the Sea gets up to sing. 

The last red splendor fades and dies, 
And shadows one by one arise, 
To light the candles of the skies. 

O wildflowers, wet with silver dew ! 

O woods, with starlight shining through ! 

My heart is in the West, with you. 

How well I know each shrub and tree, 
Each climbing vine and brier I see ; 
Like friends they seem to welcome me. 

Musing, 1 go along the streams, 
Sweetly believing in my dreams, 
For Fancy like a prophet seems. 



148 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Beside me soft steps tread the sod, 
As in the twilights gone they trod. 
And I unlearn my doubts, thank God. 

Unlearn my doubts, forget my fears, 
And that bad carelessness that sears, 
And makes me older than my years. 

I hear a dear, familiar tone, 

A loving hand clasps close my own, 

And earth seems made for me alone. 

If I my fortunes could have planned, ■ 
I w r ould not have let go that hand, 
But they must fall who learn to stand 

And how to blend life's varied hues, 
What ill to find, what good to lose, 
My Father knoweth best to choose. 




ON SEEING A DROWNING MOTR. 



Poor little moth ! thy summer sports were done, 

Had I not happened by this pool to lie ; 

But thou hast pierced my conscience very sore 

With thy vain flounderings, so come ashore 

In the safe hollow of my helpful hand, — 

Rest thee a little on the warm, dry sand, 

Then crawling out into the friendly sun, 

As best thou mayest, get thy wet wings dry. 



150 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Ay, it has touched my conscience, little moth, 

To see thy bright wings made for other use, 

Haply for just a moment's chance abuse, 

Dragging thee, thus, to death ; yet am I loth 

To heed the lesson, for I fain would lie 

Along the margin of this water low 

And watch the sunshine run in tender gleams 

Down the gray elders — watch those flowers of light — 

If flowers they be, and not the golden dreams 

Left in her grassy pillows by the night, — 

The dandelions, that trim the shadows so, 

And watch the wild flag, with her eyes of blue 

Wide open for the sun to look into, — 

Her green skirts laid along the w r ind, and she, 

As if to mar fair fortune wantonly, 

Wading along the water, half her height. 

Fain would I lie, with arms across my breast, 

As quiet as yon wood-duck on her nest, 

That sits the livelong day with ruffled quills, 

Waiting to see the little yellow bills 

Breach the white walls about them, — would that I 

Could find out some sweet charm wherewith to buy 

A too uneasy conscience, — then w r ould Rest 

Gather and fold me to itself; and last, 

Forgetting the hereafter and the past, 

My soul would have the present for its guest, 

And grow immortal. 

So, my little fool, 
Thou 'rt back upon the water ! Lord ! how vain 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



151 



The strife to save or man or moth from pain 

Merited justly, — having thy wild way 

To travel all the air, thou comest here 

To try with spongy feet the treacherous pool ; 

Well, thou at least hast made one truth more clear, - 

Men make their fate, and do not fate obey. 




152 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



GOOD AND EVIL. 

The evil that men do lives after them, 
The good is oft interred with their bones. 

Julius Cesar. 

Once when the messenger that stays 

For all, beside me stood, 
I mused on what great Shakspeare says 

Of evil and of good. 

And sliall the evil I have done 

Live after me ? I said ; 
When lo ! a splendor like the sun 

Shone round about my bed. 

And a sweet spirit of the skies 

Near me, yet all apart, 
In whispers like the low wind's sighs, 

Spake to my listening heart ; 

Saying, your poet, reverenced thus, 
For once hath been unwise; 

The good we do lives after us, 
The evil 't is that dies ! 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 153 

Evil is earthy, of the earth, — 

A thing of pain and crime, 
That scarcely sends a shadow forth 

Beyond the bounds of time. 

But good, in substance, dwells above 

This discontented sphere, 
Extending only, through God's love, 

Uncertain shadows here. 



154 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



STROLLER'S SONG. 

The clouds all round the sky are black, 

As it never would shine again; 
But I '11 sling my wallet over my back, 

And trudge in spite of the rain ! 

And if there rise no star to guide 

My feet when day is gone, 
I '11 shift my wallet the other side, 

And trudge right on and on. 

For this of a truth I always note, 

And shape my course thereby, 
That Nature has never an overcoat 

To keep her iurrows dry. 

And how should the hills be clothed with grain, 
The vales with flowers be crowned, 

But for the chain of the silver rain 
That draws them out of the ground ! 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 155 

So I will trudge with heart elate, 

And feet with courage shod, 
For that which men call chance and fate 

Is the handiwork of God. 

There 's time for the night as well as the morn, 

For the dark as the shining sky ; 
The grain of the corn and the flower unborn 

Have rights as well as I. 



156 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



A LESSON. 

One Autumn-time I went into the woods 

When Nature grieves, 
And wails the drying up of the bright floods 

Of Summer leaves. 

The rose had drawn the green quilt of the grass 

Over her head, 
And, taking off her pretty, rustling dress, 

Had gone to bed. 

And, while the wind went ruffling through her bower 

To do her harm, 
She lay and slept away the frosty hour, 

All safe and warm. 

The little bird that came when May was new, 

And sang her best, 
Had gone, — I put my double hand into 

Her chilly nest. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 167 

Then, sitting down beneath a naked tree, 

I looked about, — 
Saying, in these, if there a lesson be, 

I '11 spy it out. 

And presently the teaching that was meant 

I thought I saw, — 
That I, in trial, should patiently consent 

To God's great law. 



lf>8 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



ON SEEING A WILD BIRD. 

Beautiful symbol of a freer life, 

Knowing no purpose, and yet true to one ; 
Would I could learn thy wisdom, I who run 

This way and that, striving against my strife. 

No fancy vague, no object half unknown, 

Diverts thee from thyself. % By stops and starts 
I live the while by little broken parts 

A thousand lives, — not one of all, my own. 

Thou sing'st thy full heart out, and low or high 
Flyest at pleasure ; who of us can say 
He lives his inmost self e'en for a day, 

And does the thing he would ? alas, not I. 

We hesitate, go backward, and return, 

And when the earth with living sunshine gleams 
We make a darkness round us with our dreams, 

And wait for that which we ourselves should earn. 

For we shall work out answers to our needs 

If we have continuity of will 

To hold our shifting purposes until 
They germinate, and bring forth fruit in deeds. 






THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 159 

We ask and hope too much, — too lightly press 
Toward the end sought, and haply learn, at length, 
That we have vainly dissipated strength 

Which, concentrated, would have brought success. 

But Truth is sure, and can afford to wait 
Our slow perception, (error ebbs and flows ;) 
Her essence is eternal, and she knows 

The world must swing round to her, soon or late. 



160 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



RICH, THOUGH POOR. / 

Red in the east the morning broke, 

And in three chambers three men woke ; 

One through curtains wove that night 

In the loom of the spider, saw the light 

Lighting the rafters black and old, 

And sighed for the genii to make them gold. 

One. in a chamber, high and fair, 
With panelled ceilings, enamelled rare, 
On the purple canopy of his bed 
Saw the light with a sluggard's dread, 
And buried his sullen and sickly face 
Deep in his pillow fringed with lace. 

One, from a low and grassy bed, 

With the golden air for a coverlet; 

No ornaments had he to wear 

But his curling beard and his coal-black hair; 

His wealth was his acres, and oxen twain, 

And health was his cheerful chamberlain. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 16] 

Night fell stormy — " Woe is me ! " 
Sighed so wearily two of the three ; 
" The corn I planted to-day will sprout," 
Said one, " and the roses be blushing out ; " 
And his heart with its joyful hope o'erran : 
Think you he was the poorest man? 



n 




162 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



SIXTEEN. • 

Suppose your hand with power supplied, — 
Say, would you slip it 'neath my hair, 

And turn it to the golden side 

Of sixteen years ? Suppose you dare ? 

And I stood here with smiling mouth, 
Red cheeks, and hands all softly white, 

Exceeding beautiful with youth, 

And that some sly, consenting sprite, 

Brought dreams as bright as dreams can be. 
To keep the shadows from my brow, 

And plucked down hearts to pleasure me, 
As you would roses from a bough; 

What could I do then ? idly wear — 
While all my mates went on before — 

The bashful looks and golden hair 
Of sixteen years, and nothing more * 

Nay, done with youth is my desire, 
To Time I give no false abuse, 

Experience is the marvellous fire 
That welds our knowledge into use. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 163 

And all its fires of heart, or brain, 

Where purpose into power was wrought, 

I M bear, and gladly bear again, 

Rather than^be put back one thought. 

So sigh no more, my gentle friend, 
That I have reached the time of day 

When white hairs come, and heart-beats send 
No blushes through the cheeks astray. 

For, could you mould my destiny 

As clay within your loving hand, 
I 'd leave my youth's sweet company, 

And suffer back to where I stand. 




164 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



PRAYER FOR LIGHT. 

O what is Thy will toward us mortals, 

Most Holy and High? 
Shall we die unto life while we 're living ? 

Or live while we die ? 

Can we serve Thee and wait on Thee only 

In cells, dark and low ? 
Must the altars we build Thee be built with 

The stones of our woe ? 

Shall we only attain the great measures 

Of grace and of bliss 
In the life that awaits us, by cruelly 

Warring on this ? 

Or, may we still watch while we work, and 

Be glad while we pray? 
So reverent, we cast the poor shows of 

Our reverence away ! 

Shall the nature Thou gav'st us, pronouncing it 

Good, and not ill, 
Be warped by our pride or our passion 

Outside of Thy will ? 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. UK 

Shall the sins which we do in our blindness 

Thy mercy transcend, 
And drag us down deeper and deeper 

Through worlds without end ? 

Or, are we stayed back in sure limits, 

And Thou, high above, 
O'erruling our trials for our triumph, 

Our hatreds for love? 

And is each soul rising, though slowly, 

As onward it fares, 
And are life's good things and its evil 

The steps in the stairs ? 

All day with my heart and my spirit, 

In fear and in awe, 
I strive to feel out through my darkness 

Thy light and Thy law. 

And this, when the sun from his shining 

Goes sadly away, 
And the moon looketh out of her chamber, 

Is all I can say ; 

That He who foresaw of transgression 

The might and the length, 
Has fashioned the law to exceed not 

Our poor human strength ! 



HJ6 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES 



THE UNCUT LEAF. 

5Tou think I do not love you ! Why, 
Because I have my secret grief? 

Because in reading I pass by, 
Time and again, the uncut leaf? 

One rainy night you read to me 

In some old book, I know not what, 

About the woods of Eldersie, 

And a great hunt — I have forgot 

What all the story was — ah, well, 
It touched me, and I felt the pain 

With which the poor dumb creature fell 
To his weak knees, then rose again, 

And shuddering, dying, turned about, 
Lifted his antlered head in pride, 

And;from his wounded face shook out 
The bloody arrows ere he died ! 

That night I almost dared, I think, 
To cut the leaf, and let the sun 

Shine in upon the mouldy ink, — 
You ask me why it was not done. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



167 



Because I rather feel than know 
The truth which every soul receives 

From kindred souls, that long ago 

You read me through the double leaves ! 

So pray you, leave my tears to blot 
The record of my secret grief, 

And though I know you know, seem not 
Ever to see the uncut leaf. 




168 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



THE MIGHT OF TRUTH. 



J 



We are proclaimed, even against our wills — 
If we are silent, then our silence speaks — 

Children from tumbling on the summer-hills 
Come home with roses rooted in their cheeks. 

I think no man can make his lie hold good, — 

One way or other, truth is understood. 

The still sweet influence of a life of prayer 

Quickens their hearts who never bow the knee, — 

So come fresh draughts of living inland air 
To weary homesick men, far out at sea. 

Acquaint thyself with God, O man, and lo ! 

His light shall, like a garment, round thee flow. 

The selfishness that with our lives has grown, 
Though outward grace its full expression bar, 

Will crop out here and there like belts of stone 
From shallow soil, discovering what we are. 

The thing most specious cannot stead the true, — 

Who would appear clean, must be clean all through 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 1G9 

In vain doth Satan say, " My heart is glad, 
I wear of Paradise the morning gem ; " 

While on his brow, magnificently sad, 
Hangs like a crag his blasted diadem. 

Still doth the truth the hollow lie invest, 

And all the immortal ruin stands confessed. 




170 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



COUNSEL. 1/ 

Though sin hath marked thy brother's brow 

Love him in sin's despite, 
But for his darkness, haply thou 

Hadst never known the light. 

Be thou an angel to his life, 

And not a demon grim, — 
Since with himself he is at strife, 

O be at peace with him. 

Speak gently of his evil ways 

And all his pleas allow, 
For since he knows not why he strays 

From virtue, how shouldst thou? 

Love him, though all thy love he slights, 

For ah, thou canst not say 
But that his prayerless days and nights 

Have taught thee how to pray. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. Ul 

Outside themselves all things have laws, 

The atom and the sun, — 
Thou art thyself, perhaps, the cause 

Of sins which he has done. 

If guiltless thou, why surely then 

Thy place is by his side, — 
It was for sinners, not just men, 

That Christ the Saviour died. 




THE LITTLE BLACKSMITH. 

We heard his hammer all day long 

On the anvil ring and ring, 
But he always came when the sun went down 

To sit on the gate and sing. 



His little hands so hard and brown • 
Crossed idly on his knee, 

And straw-hat lopping over cheeks 
As red as they could be ; 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 173 

His blue and faded jacket trimmed 

With signs of work, — his feet 
All bare and fair upon the grass, 

He made a picture sweet. 

For still his shoes, with iron shod, 

On the smithy-wall he hung; 
As forth he came when the sun went down, 

And sat on the gate and sung. 

The whistling rustic tending cows, 

Would keep in pastures near, 
And half the busy villagers 

Lean from their doors to hear. 

And from the time the bluebirds came 

And made the hedges bright, 
Until the stubble yellow grew, 

He never missed a night. 

The hammer's stroke on the anvil filled 

His heart with a happy ring, 
And that was why, when the sun went down, 

He came to the gate to sing. 



174 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



TWO TRAVELLERS. 

Two travellers, meeting by the way, 

Arose, and at the peep of clay 

Brake bread, paid reckoning, and they say 

Set out together, and so trode 
Till where upon the forking road 
A gray and good old man abode. 

There each began his heart to strip, 
And all that light companionship 
That cometh of the eye and lip 

Had sudden end, for each began 
To ask the gray and good old man 
Whither the roads before them ran. 

One, as they saw, was shining bright, 
With such a great and gracious light, 
It seemed that heaven must be in sight. 

44 This,'' said the old man, " doth begin 
Full sweetly, but its end is in 
The dark and desert-place of sin. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 176 

u And tliis, that seemeth all to lie 
In gloomy shadow, — by-and-by, 
Maketh the gateway of the sky. 

" Bide ye a little ; fast and pray, 
And 'twixt the good and evil way, 
Choose ye, my brethren, this day." 

And as the day was at the close 

The two wayfaring men arose, 

And each the road that pleased him chose. 

One took the pathway that began 
So brightly, and so smoothly ran 
Through flowery fields, — deluded man ! 

Ere long he saw, alas ! alas ! 

All darkly, and as through a glass, 

Flames, and not flowers, along the grass. 

Then shadows round about him fell, 
And in his soul he knew full well 
His feet were taking hold on hell. 



*» 



He tried all vainly to retrace 

His pathway; horrors blocked the place, 

And demons mocked him to his face. 



176 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Brokeh in spirit, crushed in pride, 
One morning by the highway-side 
He fell, and all unfriended, died. 

The other, after fast and prayer, 
Pursued the road that seemed less fair, 
And peace went with him, unaware. 

And when the old man saw where lay 
The traveller's choice, he said, " I pray, 
Take this to help you on the way ; " 

And gave to him a lovely book, 
Wherein for guidance he must look, 
He told him, if the path should crook. 

And so, through labyrinths of shade, 
When terror pressed, or doubt dismayed, 
He walked in armor all arrayed. 

So, over pitfalls travelled he, 
And passed the gates of harlotry, 
Safe with his heavenly company. 

And when the road did low descend, 
He found a good inn, and a friend, 
And made a comfortable end. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 177 



THE BLIND TRAVELLER. 

A poor blind man was travelling one day, 

The guiding staff from out his hand was gone, 

And the road crooked, so he lost his way, 

And the night fell, and a great storm came on. 

He was not, therefore, troubled and afraid, 
Nor did he vex the silence with his cries, 

But on the rainy grass his cheek he laid, 
And waited for the morning sun to rise. 

Saying to his heart, — Be still, my heart, and wait 
For if a good man happen to go by, 

He will not leave us to our dark estate 
And the* cold cover of the storm, to die ; 

But he w T ill sweetly take us by the hand, 
And lead us back into the straight highway ; 

Full soon the clouds will have evanished, and 
All the wide east be blazoned with the day. 

23 



178 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES, 

And we are like that blind man, all of us, — 
Benighted, lost ! But while the storm doth fall 

Shall we not stay our sinking hearts up, thus, — 
Above us there is One who sees it all ; 

And if His name be Love, as we are told, 
He will not leave us to unequal strife ; 

But to that city with the streets of gold 
Bring us, and give us everlas-'ng life. 




THOUGHTS A AD THEORIES. 170 



THE BLACKBIRD. 

y I could not think so plain a bird 
Could sing so fine a song." 

One on another against the wall 

Pile up the books, — I am done with them all ! 

I shall be wise, if I ever am wise, 

Out of my own ears, and of my own eyes. 

One day. of the woods and their balmy light, — 

One hour on the top of a breezy hill, 
Where in the sassafras all out of siMit 

The blackbird is splitting his slender bill 
For the ease of his heart ! 

Do you think if he said 
I will sing like this* bird with the mud-colored back 
And the two little spots of gold over his eyes, 
Or like to this shy little creature that flies 
So low to the ground, with the amethyst rings 
About her small throat, — all alive when she sings 
With a glitter of shivering green, — for the rest, 
Gray shading to gray, with the sheen of her breast 
Half rose and half fawn, — 



I HO THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Or like this one so proud, 
That flutters so restless, and cries out so loud, 
With stiff horny beak and a topknotted head, 
And a lining of scarlet laid under his wings, — 
Do you think, if he said, " I 'm ashamed to be black ! M 
That he could have sha an the sassafras-tree 
As he does with the song he was born to ? not he ! 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 1$1 



MY GOOD ANGEL. 

Very simple are my pleasures, — 
O good angel, stay with me, 
While I number what they be, — 

Easy 't is to count my treasures. 

Easy 't is, — they are not many : 
Friends for love and company, 
O good angel grant to me ; 

Strength to work ; and is there any 

Man or woman, evil seeing 
In my daily walk and way, 
Grant, and give me grace to pray 

For a less imperfect being. 

Grant a larger light, and better, 
To inform my foe and me, 
So we quickly shall agree ; 

Grant forgiveness to my debtor. 



182 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIhS. 



Make my heart, I pray, of kindness 
Always full, as clouds of showers ; 

Keep my mortal eyes from blindness; 
I would see the sun and flowers. 

From temptation pray deliver ; 

And, good angel, grant to me 
That my heart be grateful ever : 

Herein all my askings be. 




THOUGHTS AND THE OKIES. 183 



MORE LIFE. ^ 



When spring-time prospers in the grass, 
And fills the vales with tender bloom, 

And light winds whisper as they pass 
Of sunnier days to come : 

In spite of all the joy she brings 

To flood and field, to hill and grove, 

This is the song my spirit sings, — 
More light, more life, more love ! 

And when, her time fulfilled, she goes 
So gently from her vernal place, 

And meadow wide and woodland glows 
With sober summer grace : 

When on the stalk the ear is set, 
With all the harvest promise bright, 

My spirit sings the old song yet, — 
More love, more life, more light ! 



184 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

When stubble takes the place of grain, 
And shrunken streams steal slow along. 

And all the faded woods complain 
Like one who suffers wrong ; 

When fires are lit, and everywhere 
The pleasures of the household rife, 

My song is solemnized to prayer, — - 
More love, more light, more life ! 



• 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 185 



CONTRADICTORY. ^ 

We contradictory creatures 
Have something in us alien to our birth, 
That doth suffuse us with the infinite, 

While downward through our natures 
Run adverse thoughts, that only find delight 

In the poor, perishable things of earth. 

Blindly we feel about 
Our little circle, — ever on the quest 
Of knowledge, which is only, at the best, 
Pushing the boundaries of our ignorance out. 

But while we know all things are miracles, 

And that we cannot set 
An ear of corn, nor tell a blade of grass 
The way to grow, our vanity o'erswells 
The limit of our wisdom, and we yet 

Audaciously o'erpass 

This narrow promontory 
Of low, dark land, into the unseen glory, 

And with unhallowed zeal 
Unto our fellow-men God's judgments deal. 
24 



186 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Sometimes along the gloom 
We meet a traveller, striking hands with whom, 
Maketh a little sweet and tender light 

To bless our sight, 
And change the clouds around us and above 
Into celestial shapes, — and this is love. 

Morn cometh, trailing storms, 
liven while she wakes a thousand grateful psalms 

And with her golden calms 

All the wide valley fills ; 

Darkly they lie below 

The purple fire, — the glow, 
Where, on the high tops of the eastern hills, 

She rests her cloudy arms. 

And we are like the morning, — heavenly light 

Blowing about our heads, and th' dumb night 

Before us and behind us ; ceaseless ills 

Make up our years ; and as from off the hills 

The white mists melt, and leave them bare and rough, 

So melt from us the fancies of our youth 

Until we stand against the last black truth 

Naked, and cold, and desolate enough. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 1 S7 



THIS IS ALL. 

Trying, trying — always trying — 

Falling down to save a fall ; 
Living by the dint of dying, — 

This is all ! 

Giving, giving — always giving — 
Gathering just abroad to cast ; 

Dying by the dint of living 
At the last ! 

Sighing, smiling — smiling, sighing - 
Sun in shade, and shade in sun ; 

Dying, living — living, dying — 
Both in one ! 

Hoping in our very fearing, 

Striving hard against our strife ; 

Drifting in the stead of steering, — 
This is life ! 



188 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



Seeming to believe in seeming, 
Half disproving, to approve ; 

Knowing that we dream, in dreaming, 
This is love ! 

Being in our weakness stronger, — 
Living where there is no breath ; 

Feeling harm can harm no longer, — 
This is death 




THOUGHTS AJSD THEORIES. 18& 



IN VAIN. 

Down the peach-tree slid 

The milk-white drops of th' dew, 
All in that merry time of th' year 

When the world is made anew. 



tj- 



The daisy dressed in white, 
The paw-paw flower in brown, 

And th' violet sat by her lover, th' brook, 
With her golden eyelids down. 

Gayly its own best hue 

Shone in each leaf and stem, — 
Gayly the children rolled on th' grass, 

With their shadows after them. 

I said, Be sweet for me, 

little wild flowers ! for I 

Have larger need, and shut in myself, 

1 wither and waste and die ! 



190 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Pity me, sing for me ! 

I cried to the tuneful bird ; 
My heart is full of th 1 spirit of song, 

And I cannot sing a word ! 

Like a buried stream that longs 
Through th' upper world to run, 

And kiss the dawn in her rosy mouth, 
And lie in th' light of th' sun ; 

So in me, is my soul, 

Wasting in darkness the hours. 

Ever fretted and sullen and sad 

With a sense of its unused powers. 

In vain ! each little flower 

Must be sweet for itself, nor part 

With its white or brown, and every bird 
Must sing from its own full heart. 



tl 



THOUGHTS AND THE0R1KS. Itfl 



BEST, TO THE BEST. * 

The wind blows where it listeth, 

Out of the east and west, 
And the sinner's way is as dark as death, 

And life is best, to the best. 

The touch of evil corrupteth ; 

Tarry not on its track ; 
The grass where the serpent crawls is stirred 

As if it grew on his back. 

To know the beauty of cleanness 

The heart must be clean and sweet ; 

We must love our neighbor to get his love, — 
As we measure, he will mete. 

Cold black crusts to the beggar, 

A cloak of rags and woe ; 
And the furrows are warm to the sower's feet, 

And his bread is white as snow. 



192 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



Can bund eyes see the even, 

As he hangs on th' days' soft close, 

Like a lusty boy on his mother's neck, 
Bright in the face as a rose? 

The grave is cold and cruel, — 

Rest, pregnant with unrest ; 
And woman must moan and man must groan ; 

But life is best, to the best. 





THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 194 



THORNS, f 

I do not think the Providence unkind 

That gives its bad things to this life of ours ; 

They are the thorns whereby we, travellers blind, 
Feel out our flowers. 

I think hate shows the quality of love, — 

That wrong attests that somewhere there is right 

Do not the darkest shadows serve to prove 
The power of light ? 

On tyrannous ways the feet of Freedom press ; 

The green bough broken off, lets sunshine in ; 
And where sin is, aboundeth righteousness, 

Much more than sin. 

Man cannot be all selfish ; separate good 
Is nowhere found beneath the shining sun . 

All adverse interests, truly understood, 
Resolve to one ! 

25 



194 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

I do believe all worship doth ascend, — 

Whether from temple floors by heathen trod, 

Or from the shrines where Christian praises blend, 
To the true God, 

Blessed forever : that His love prepares 

The raven's food ; the sparrow's fall doth see ; 

And, simple, sinful as I am, He cares 
Even for me. 



H 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 195 



OLD ADAM, l^ 

The wind is blowing cold from the west, 

And your hair Is gray and thin ; 
Come in, old Adam, and shut the door, — 

Come in, old Adam, come in ! 
" The wind is blowing out o' the west, 

Cold, cold, and my hair is thin ; 
But it is not there, that face so fair, 

And w r hy should I go in ? " 

The wind is blowing cold from the west ; 

The day is almost gone ; 
The cock is abed, the cattle fed, 

And the night is coming on ! 
Come in, old Adam, and shut the door, 

And leave without your care. 
" Nay, nay, for the sun of my life is down. 

And the night is everywhere." 

The cricket chirps, and your chair is set 
Where the fire shines warm and clear ; 



196 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



Come in, old Adam, and you will forget 

It is not the spring o' the year. 
Come in ! the wind blows wild from the west, 

And your hair is gray and thin. 
" 'T is not there now, that sweet, sweet brow, 

And why should I go in ? *' 





THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 



c/ 



Her voice was tender as a lullaby, 

Making you think of milk-white dews that creep 
Among th' mid-May violets, when they lie, 

All in the yellow moonlight fast asleep. 

Ay, tender as that most melodious tone 

The lark has, when within some covert dim 

With leaves, he talks with morning all alone, 
Persuading her to rise and come to him. 



Shy in her ways; her father's cattle knew — 
No neighbor half so well — her footstep light, 

For by the pond where mint and mallows grew 
Always she came and called them home at night 



198 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

A sad, low pond that cut the field in two 
Wherein they ran, and never billow sent 

To play with any breeze, but still withdrew 
Into itself, in wrinkled, dull content. 

And here, through mint and mallows she would stray, 
Musing the while she called, as it might be 

On th' cold clouds, or winds that with rough gray 
Shingled the landward slope of the near sea. 

God knows ! not I, on what she mused o' nights 
Straying about the pond : she had no woe 

To think upon, they said, nor such delights 
As maids are wont to hide. I only know 

We do not know the weakness or the worth 
Of any one : th' Sun as he w T ill may trim 

His golden lights ; he cannot see the earth 
He loves, but on the side she turns to him. 

I only know that when this lonesome pond 

Lifted the buried lilies from its breast 
One warm, wet day (I nothing know beyond), 

It lifted her white face up with the rest. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 1P9 



A PRAYER. ^ 

I have been little used to frame 

Wishes to speech and call it prayer ; 

To-day, my Father, in Thy name, 
I ask to have my soul stript bare 

Of all its vain pretence, — to see 

Myself, as I am seen by Thee. 

I want to know how much the pain 
And passion here, its powers abate ; 

To take its thoughts, a tangled skein, 

And stretch them out all smooth and straight ; 

To track its wavering course through sin 

And sorrow, to its origin. 

I want to know if in the night 

Of evil, grace doth so abound, 
That from its darkness we draw light, 

As flowers do beauty from the ground ; 
Or, if the sins of time shall be 
The shadows of eternity. 



200 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



I want, though only for an hour, 
To be myself, — to get more near 

The wondrous mystery and power 
Of love, whose echoes floating here, 

Between us and the waiting grave, 

Make all of light, of heaven, we have. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 201 



ALONE. 

What shall I do when I stand in my place, 
Unclothed of this garment of cloud and dust, 
Unclothed of this garment of selfish lust, 

With my Maker, face to face ! 

What shall I say for my worldly pride ? 

What for the things I have done and not done ? 

There will be no cloud then over the sun, 
And no grave wherein to hide. 

No time for waiting, no time for prayer, — 
No friend that with me my life-path trod 
To help me, — only my soul and my God, 

And all my sins laid bare. 
» 

No dear human pity, no low loving speech, 
About me that terrible day shall there be , 
Remitted back into myself, I shall see 

All sweetest things out of reach. 

But why should I tremble before tli' unknown, 

And put off the blushing and shame ? Now, — to-day ] 
The friend close beside me seems far, far away, 

And I stand at God's judgment alone ! 
26 



202 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES 



SOMETIMES. 

Sometimes for days 
Along the fields that I of time have leased, 
I go, nor find a single leaf increased ; 

And hopeless, graze 
With forehead stooping downward like a beast. 

O heavy hours ! 
My life seems all a failure, and I sigh, 
What is there left for me to do, but die ? 

So small my powers 
That I can only stretch them to a cry! 

But while I stretch 
What strength I have, though only ta a cry, 
I gain an utterance that men know me by ; 

Create, and fetch 
A something out of chaos, — that is I. 

Good comes to pass 
We know not when nor how, for, looking to 
What seemed a barren waste, there starts to view 

Some bunch of grass, 
Or snarl of violets, shining with the dew. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 203 

I do believe 
The very impotence to pray, is prayer; 
The hope that all will end, is in despair, 

And while we grieve, 
Comfort abideth with us, unaware. 




204 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



THE SEA-SIDE CAVE. 

'A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings 
tell the matter." 

At he dead of night by the side of the Sea 
I met my gray-haired enemy, — 
The glittering light of his serpent eye 
Was all I Irad to see him by. 

At the dead of night, and stormy weather 
We went into a cave together, — 
Into a cave by the side of the Sea, 
And — he never came out with me ! 

The flower that up through the April mould 
Comes like a miser dragging his gold, 
Never made spot of earth so bright 
As was the ground in the cave that night. 

Dead of night, and stormy weather ! 
Who should see us going together 
Under the black and dripping stone 
Of the cave from whence I came alone ! 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



205 



Next day as my boy sat on my knee 
He picked the gray hairs off from me, 
And told with eyes brimful of fear 
How a bird in the meadow near 

Over her clay-built nest had spread 
Sticks and leaves all bloody red, 
Brought from a cave by the side of the Sea 
Where some murdered man must be. 




-06 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



JANUARY. 

The year has lost its leaves again, 
The world looks old and grim ; 

God folds his robe of glory thus, 
That we may see but Him. 

And all his stormy messengers, 
That come with whirlwind breath, 

Beat out our chaff of vanity, 
And leave the grains of faith. 

We will not feel, while summer waits 

Her rich delights to share, 
What sinners, miserably bad, — 

How weak and poor we are. 

We tread through fields of speckled flowers 

As if we did not know 
Our Father made them beautiful, 

Because He loves us so. 

We hold his splendors in our hands 

As if we held the dust, 
And deal his judgment, as if man 

Than God could be more just. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 201 

We seek, in prayers and penances, 

To do the martyr's part, 
Remembering not, the promises 

Are to the pure in heart. 

From evil and forbidden things, 

Some good we think to win, 
And to the last analysis 

Experiment with sin. 

We seek no oil in summer time 

Our winter lamp to trim, 
But strive to bring God down to us } 

More than to rise to Him. 

And when that He is nearest, most 

Our weak complaints we raise, 
Lacking the wisdom to perceive 

The mystery of his ways. 

For, when drawn . closest to himself, 

Then least his love we mark ; 

The very wings that shelter us 

From peril, make it dark. 

i 

Sometimes He takes his hands from us, 

When storms the loudest blow, 
That we may learn how weak, alone, — 

How strong in Him, we grow. 



208 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Through the cross iron of our free will 
And fate, we plead for light, 

As if God gave us not enough 
To do our work aright. 

We will not see, but madly take 
The wrong and crooked path, 

And in our own hearts light the fires 
Of a consuming wrath. 

The fashion of his Providence 

Our way is so above, 
We serve Him most who take the most 

Of his exhaustless love. 

We serve Him in the good we do, 
The blessings we embrace, 

Not lighting farthing candles for 
The palace of his grace. 

He has no need of our poor aid 

His purpose to pursue ; 
'T is for our pleasure, not for his, 

That we his work must do. 

Then blow, O wild winds, as ye list, 
And let the world look grim, — 

God folds his robe of glory thus 
That we may see but Him. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 209 



THE MEASURE OF TIME. 



•" 



A breath, like the wind's breath, may carry 

A name far and wide, 
But the measure of time does not tally 

With any man's pride. 

'T is not a wild chorus of praises, 

Nor chance, nor yet fate, — 
'T is the greatness born with him, and in him, 

That makes the man great. 

And when in the calm self-possession 

That birthright confers, 
The man is stretched out to her measure, 

Fame claims him for hers. 

Too proud to fall back on achievement, 

With work in his sight, 
His triumph may not overtake him 

This side of the night. 



*to* 



And men, with his honors about them, 

His grave-mound may pass, 
Nor dream what a great heart lies under 

Its short knotty grass. 
27 



210 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

But though he has lived thus unprospered, 

And died thus, alone, 
His face may not always be hid by 

A handbreadth of stone. 

The long years are wiser than any 

Wise day of them all, 
And the hero at last shall stand upright, — 

The base image fall. 

The counterfeit may for a season 

Deceive the wide earth, 
But the lie, waxing great, comes to labor* 

And truth has its birth. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 211 



IDLE FEARS. " 

In my lost childhood old folks said to me, 

" Now is the time and season of your bliss ; 

All joy is in the hope of joy to be, 

Not in possession ; and in after years 

You will look back with longing sighs and tears 

To the young days when you from care were free/ 1 

It was not true ; they nurtured idle fears ; 

I never saw so good a day as this ! 

And youth and I have parted : long ago 
I looked into my glass, and saw one day 
A little silver line that told me so : 
At first I shut my eyes and cried, and then 
I hid it under girlish flowers, but when 
Persuasion would not make my mate to stay, 
I bowed my faded head, and said, "Amen!" 
And all my peace is since she went away. 

My window opens toward the autumn woods ; 
I see the ghosts of thistles walk the air 
O'er the long, level stubble-land that broods ; 
Beneath^the herbless rocks that jutting lie, 



212 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Summer has gathered her white family 
Of shrinking daisies ; all the hills are bare, 
And in the meadows not a limb of buds 
Through the brown bushes showeth anywhere. 

Dear, beauteous season, we must say good-bye, 
And can afford to, we have been so blest, 
And farewells suit the time ; the year doth lie 
With cloudy skirts composed, and pallid face 
Hid under yellow leaves, with touching grace, 
So that her bright-haired sweetheart of the sky 
The image of her prime may not displace. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 218 



HINTS. 



^ 



Two thirsty travellers chanced one day to meet 
Where a spring bubbled from the burning sand ; 
One drank out of the hollow of his hand, 

And found the water very cool and sweet. 

The other waited for a smith to beat 
And fashion for his use a golden cup ; 

And while he waited, fainting in the heat, 

The sunshine came and drank the fountain up ! 

In a green field two little flowers there were, 
And both were fair in th' face and tender-eyed ; 
One took the light and dew that heaven supplied, 

And all the summer gusts were sweet with her. 

The other, to her nature false, denied 
That she had any need of sun and dew, 
And hung her silly head, and sickly grew, 

And frayed and faded, all untimely died. 



214 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

A vine o' th' bean, that had been early wed 
To a tall peach, conceiving that he hid 
Her glories from the world, unwisely slid 

Out of his arms, and vainly chafing, said : 

" This fellow is an enemy of mine, 

And dwarfs me with his shade " : she would not see 
That she was made a vine, and not a tree, 

And that a tree is stronger tnan a vine. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 216 



TO A STAGNANT RIVER. 

river, why lie with your beautiful face 

To the hill ? Can you move him away from his place ? 
You may moan, — you may clasp him with soft arms 

forever, — 
He will still be a flinty hill, — you be a river. 

'T is wilful, 't is wicked to waste in despair 

The treasure so many are dying to share , 

The gifts that we have, Heaven lends for right using, 

And not for ignoring, and not for abusing. 

Let the moss have his love, and the grass and the dew, — 
By God's law he cannot be mated with you. 
His friend is the stubble, his life is the dust, 
You are not what you would, — you must be what you 
must. 

If into his keeping your fortune you cast, 

1 tell you the end will be hatred at last, 

Or death through stagnation ; your rest is in motion ; 
The aim of your being, the cloud and the ocean. 



216 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Love cannot be love, with itself set at strife ; 

To sin against Nature is death and not life. 

You may freeze in the shadow or seethe in the sun, 

But the oil and the w r ater will not be at one. 

Your pride and your peace, when this passion is crossed 

Will pay for the struggle whatever it cost ; 

But though earth dissolve, though the heavens should 

fell, 
To yourself, your Creator, be true first of all. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 211 



COUNSEL. 

Seek not to walk by borrowed light, 

But keep unto thine own : 
Do what thou doest with thy might, 

And trust thyself alone ! 

Work for some good, nor idly lie 

Within the human hive ; 
And, though the outward man should die, 

Keep thou the heart alive ! 

Strive not to banish pain and doubt, 

In pleasure's noisy din ; 
The peace thou seekest for without 

Is only found within. 

If fortune disregard thy claim, 

By worth, her slight attest ; 
Nor blush and hang the head for shame 

When thou hast done thy best. 
28 



XIX THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

What thy experience teaches true, 

Be vigilant to heed ; 
The wisdom that we suffer to, 

Is wiser. than a creed. 

Disdain neglect, ignore despair, 
On loves and friendships gone 

Plant thou thy feet, as on a stair^ 
And mount right up and on ! 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 21& 



LATENT LIFE. ^ 

Though never shown by word or deed, 
Within us lies some germ of power, 

As lies unguessed, within the seed, 
The latent flower. 

And under every common sense 
That doth its daily use fulfil, 

There lies another, more intense, 
And beauteous still. 

This dusty house, wherein is shrined 
The soul, is but the counterfeit 

Of that which shall be, more refined, 
And exquisite. 

The light which to our sight belongs, 
Enfolds a light more broad and clear ; 

Music but intimates the songs 
We do not hear. 

The fond embrace, the tender kiss 
Which love to its expression brings, 

Are but the husk the chrysalis 
Wears on its wings. 



220 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

The vigor falling to decay, 

Hopes, impulses that fade and die, 

Are but the layers peeled away 
From life more high. 

When death shall come and disallow 
These rough and ugly masks we wear., 

I think that we shall be as now, — 
Only more fair. 

And He who makes Lis love to be 
Always around me, sure and calm, 

Sees w r hat is possible to me, 
Not what I am. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 221 



HOW AND WHERE, 

How are we living? 
Like herbs in a garden that stand in a row, 
And have nothing to do but to stand there and grow ? 

Our powers of perceiving 

So dull and so dead, 
They simply extend to the objects about us, — 
The moth, having all his dark pleasure without us, — 

The worm in his bed I 

If thus we are living, 
And fading, and falling, and rotting, alas ! — 
Like the grass, or the flowers that grow in the grass, — 

Is life worth our having ? 

The insect a-humming, — 
The wild bird is better, that sings as it flies, — 
The ox, that turns up his great face to the skies, 

When the thunder is coming. 

Where are we living? 
In passion, and pain, and remorse do we dwell, — 
Creating, yet terribly hating, our hell ? 

No triumph achieving ? 



222 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



No grossness refining? 
The wild tree does more ; for his coat of rough barks 
He trims with green mosses, and checks with the marks 

Of the long summer shining. 

We 're dying, not living : 
Our senses shut up, and our hearts faint and cold ; 
Upholding old things just because they are old ; 

Our good spirits grieving, * 

We suffer our springs 
Of promise to pass without sowing the land, 
And hungry and sad in the harvest-time stand, 

Expecting good things 1 





THE FELLED TREE. 

They set me up, and bade me stand 

Beside a dark, dark sea, 
In the befogged, low-lying land, 

Of this mortality. 



I slipped my roots round the stony soil 
Like rings on the hand of a bride, 

And my boughs took hold of the summer's smile 
And grew out green and wide. 



224 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Crooked, and shaggy on all sides, 

I was homeliest of trees, 
But the cattle rubbed their speckled hides 

Against my knotty knees ; 

And lambs, in white rows on the grass, 

Lay down within my shade ; 
So I knew, all homely as I was, 

For a good use I was made. 

And my contentment served me well; 

My heart grew strong and sweet, 
And my shaggy bark cracked off and fell 

In layers at my feet. 

I felt when the darkest storm was rife 
The day of its wrath was brief, 

And that I drew from the centre of life 
The life of my smallest leaf. 

At last a woodman came one day 
With axe to a sharp edge ground, 

And hewed at my heart till I stood a-sway, 
But I never felt the wound. 

I knew immortal seed was sown 

Within me at my birth, 
And I fell without a single groan, 

With my green face to the earth. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



225 



Now all men pity me, and must, 

Who see me He so low, 
But the Power that changes me to dust 

Is the same that made me grow. 




2fct> THOUGHTS AND THEORIES* 



A DREAM. 

I dreamed I had a plot of ground, 
Once when I chanced asleep to drop, 

And that a green hedge fenced it round. 
Cloudy with roses at the top. 

I saw a hundred mornings rise, — 
So far a little dream may reach, — 

And Spring with Summer in her eyes 
Making the chiefest charm of each. 

A thousand vines were climbing o'er 
The hedge, I thought, but as I tried 

To pull them down, forevermore 

The flowers dropt off the other side ! 

Waking, I said, these things are signs 
Sent to instruct us that 't is ours 

Duly to keep and dress our vines, — 
Waiting in patience for the flowers. 

And when the angel feared of all 
Across my hearth its shadow spread • 

The rose that climbed my garden wall 
Has bloomed the other side, I said. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. Z^l 



WORK. 

Down and up, and up and down, 

Over and over and over ; 
Turn in the little seed, dry and brown, 

Tuin out the bright red clover. 
Work, and the sun your work will share. 

And the rain in its time will fall ; 
For Nature, she worketh everywhere, 

And the grace of God through all. 

With hand on the spade and heart in the sky, 

Dress the ground, and till it ; 
Turn in the little seed, brown and dry, 

Turn out the golden millet. 
Work, and your house shall be duly fed ; 

Work, and rest shall be won ; 
I hold that a man had better be dead 

Than alive, when his work is clone ! 

Down and up, and up and clown, 
On the hill-top, low in the valley; 

Turn in the little seed, dry and brown, 
Turn out the rose and lily. 



228 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

Work with a plan, or without a plan, 

And your ends they shall be shaped true ; 

Work, and learn at first hand, like a man, — 
The best way to know, is to do ! 

Down and up till life shall close, 

Ceasing not your praises ; 
Turn in the wild white winter snows, 

Turn out the sweet spring daisies. 
Work, and the sun your work will share. 

Ana the rain in its time will fall ; 
For Nature, she worketh everywhere, 

And the grace of God through all. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 229 



COMFORT. 

Boatman, boatman ! my brain is wild, 

As wild as the stormy seas ; 
My poor little child, my sweet little child. 

Is a corpse upon my knees. 

No holy choir to sing so low, 

No priest to kneel in prayer, 
No tire-woman to help me sew 

A cap for his golden hair. 

Dropping his oars in the rainy sea, 

The pious boatman cried, 
Not without Him who is life to thee 

Could the little child have died ! 

His grace the same, and the same His power, 

Demanding our love and trust, 
Whether He makes of the dust a flower, 

Or changes a flower to dust. 



& 



On the land and the water, all in all, 
The strength to be still or pray, 

To blight the leaves in their time to fall, 
Or light up the hills with May. 



230 THOUGHTS AND THE CRIES. 



FAITH AND WORKS. 

Not what we think, but what we do, 
Makes saints of us : all stiff and cold, 

The outlines of the corpse show through 
The cloth of gold. 

And in despite the outward sin, — 
Despite belief with creeds at strife, — 

The principle of love within 
Leavens the life. 

For, 't is for fancied good, I claim, 

That men do wrong, — not wrong's desire ; 

Wrapping themselves, as 't were, in flame 
To cheat the fire. 

Not what God gives, but what He takes, 

Uplifts us to the holiest height ; 
On truth's rough crags life's current breaks 

To diamond light. 



a & 



From transient evil I do trust 
That we a final good, shall draw; 

That in confusion, death, and dust, 
Are light a nd law. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 231 

That He whose glory shines among 
The eternal stars, descends to mark 

This foolish little atom swung 
Loose in the dark. 

But though I should not thus receive 

A sense of order and control, 
My God, I could not disbelieve 

My sense of soul. 

For though, alas ! I can but see 

A hand's breadth backward, or before, 

I aw, and since I am, must be 
Forevermore. 




232 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



THE RUSTIC PAINTER. 

His sheep went idly over the hills, — 

Idly down and up, — 
As he sat and painted his sweetheart's face 

On a little ivory cup. 

All round him roses lay in the grass 
That were hardly out of buds ; 

For sake of her mouth and cheek, I knew 
He had murdered them in the woods. 

The ant, that good little housekeeper, 

Was not at work so hard ; 
And yet the semblance of a smile 

Was all of his reward : 

And the golden-belted gentleman 

That travels in the air, 
Hummed not so sweet to the clover-buds 

As he to his picture there. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



233 



The while for his ivory cup he made 

An easel of his knee, 
And painted his little sweetheart's face 

Truly and tenderly. 

Tims we are marking on all our work 
Whatever we have of grace ; 

As the rustic painted his ivory cup 
With his little sweetheart's face. 




234 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



ONE OF MANY. 

I knew a man — I know him still 
In part, in all I ever knew, — 

Whose life runs counter to his will, 
Leaving the things he fain would cto, 

Undone. His hopes are shapes of sands, 
That cannot with themselves agree ; 

As one whose eager, outstretched hands 
Take hold on water — so is he. 

Fame is a bauble, to his ken ; 

Mirth cannot move his aspect grim ; 
The holidays of other men 

Are only battle-days to him. 

He locks his heart within his breast, 

Believing life to such as he 
Is but a change of ills, at best, — 

A crossed and crazy tragedy. 

His cheek is wan ; his limbs are faint 
With fetters which they never wore ; 

No wheel that ever crushed a saint, 
But breaks his body o'er and o'er. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 235 

Though woman's grace he never sought 
By tender look, or word of praise, 

He dwells upon her in his thought, 
With all a lover's lingering phrase. 

A very martyr to the truth, 

All that 's best in him is belied ; 
Humble, yet proud withal ; in sooth 

His pride is his disdain of pride. 

He sees in what he does amiss 

A continuity of ill ; 
The next life dropping out of this, 

Stained with its many colors still. 

His kindliest pity is for those 

Who are the slaves of guilty lusts ; 

And virtue, shining till it shows 
Another's frailty, he distrusts. 

Nature, he holds, since time began 
Has been reviled, — misunderstood ; 

And that we first must love a man 
To judge him, — be he bad or good. 

Often his path is crook'd and low, 

And is so in his own despite ; 
For still the path he meant to go 

Runs straight, and level with the right. 



236 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

No heart has he to strive with fate 

For less things than our great men gafte 

Achieved, who, with their single weight, 
Turned time's slow wheels a century on. 

Nik 

His waiting silence is his prayer ; 

His darkness is his plea for light ; 
And loving all men everywhere, 

He lives, a more than anchorite. 

O friends, if you this man should see, 
Be not your scorn too hardly hurled , 

Believe me, whatsoe'er he be, 

There be more like him in the world. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 287 



THE SHADOW. ^ 

One summer night, 
The full moon, 'tired in her golden cloak, 
Did beckon me, I thought ; and I awoke, 

And saw a light, 

Most soft and fair, 
Shine in the brook, as if, in love's distress, 
The parting sun had shear' d a dazzling tress, 

And left it there. 

Toward the sweet banks 
Of the bright stream straightly I bent my way ; 
And in my heart good thoughts the while did stay, 

Giving God thanks. 



'& 



The wheat-stocks stood 
Along the field like little fairy men, 
And mists stole, white and bashful, through the glen, 

As maidens would. 

In rich content 
My soul was growing toward immortal height, 
When, lo! I saw that by me, through the light. 

A shadow went. 



238 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

I stopped, afraid : 
It was the bad sign of some evil done ; 
That stopping, too, right swiftly did I run; 

So did the shade. 

At length I drew 
Ciose to the bank of the delightful brook, 
And sitting in the moonshine, turn'd to look ; 

It sat there too. 

Ere long I spied 
A weed with goodly flowers upon its top ; 
And when I saw that such sweet tilings did drop 

Black shadows, cried, — 

Lo ! I have found, 
Hid in this ugly riddle, a good sign ; 
My life is twofold, earthly and divine, — 

Buried and crown'd. 

Sown darkly ; raised 
Light within light, when death from mortal soil 
Undresses me, and makes me spiritual : — 

Dear Lord, be praised. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 289 



THE UNWISE CHOICE. ^ 

Two young men, when I was poor, 
Came and stood at my open door; 

One said to me, " I have gold to give ; " 
And one, " I will love you while I live ! " 

My sight was dazzled ; woe 's the day ! 
And I sent the poor young man away ; 

Sent him away, I know not where, 
And my heart went with him, unaware. 

He did not give me any sighs, 
But he left his picture in my eyes ,* 

And in my eyes it has always been : 
I have no heart to keep it in ! 

Beside the lane with hedges sweet, 
Where we parted, never more to meet, 

He pulled a flower of love's own hue, 
And where it had been came out two ! 



fc40 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



And in tli' grass where he stood, for years, 
The dews of th' morning looked like tears. 



Still smiles the house where I was born 
Among its fields of wheat and corn. 

Wheat and corn that strangers bind, — 

I reap as I sowed, and I sowed to th' wind: 

As one who feels the truth break through 
His dream, and knows his dream untrue, 

I live where splendors shine, and sigh, 
For the peace that splendor cannot buy ; 

Sigh for the day I was rich tho' poor, 
And saw th' two young men at my door ! 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 241 



SIGNS OF GRACE. 



J 



Come thou, my heavy soul, and lay 

Thy sorrows all aside, 
And let us see, if so we may, 

How God is glorified. 

Forget the storms that darkly beat, 
Forget the woe and crime, 

And tie of consolations sweet 
A posie for the time. 

Some blessed token everywhere 

Doth grace to men allow ; 
The daisy sets her silver share 

Beside the rustic's plough. 

The wintry wind that naked strips 

The bushes, stoopeth low, 
And round their rugged arms enwraps 

The fleeces of the snow. 

The blackbird, idly whistling till 

The storm begins to pour, 
Finds ever with his golden bill 

A hospitable door. 
31 



242 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 

From love, and love's protecting powear, 

We cannot go apart ; 
The shadows round the fainting flower 

RebuKe the drooping heart. 

Our strivings are not reckoned less, 
Although we fail to win ; 

The lily wears a royal dress, 
And yet she doth not spin. 

So, Soul, forget thy evil days, 

Thy sorrow lay aside, 
And strive to see in all His ways 

How God is glorified. 




THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. i*4b 



PROVIDENCE. * 

" From seeming evil, still educing good." 

The stone upon the wayside seed that fell, 
And kept the spring rain from it, kept it too 

From the bird's mouth ; and in that silent cell 
It quickened, after many days, and grew, 

Till, by-and-by, a rose, a single one, 

Lifted its little face into the sun. 

It chanced a wicked man approached one day, 
And saw the tender, piteous look it wore : 

Perhaps one like it somewhere far away 
Grew in a garden-bed, or by the door 

That he in childish days had played around, 

For his knees, trembling, sunk upon the ground. 

Then, o'er this piece of bleeding earth, the tears 
Of penitence were wrung, until at last 

The golden key of love, that sin for years 
In his unquiet soul had rusted fast, 

Was loosened, and his heart, that very hour, 

Opened to God's good sunshine, like a flower. 



244 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



THE LIVING PRESENT. 

Friends, let us slight no pleasant spring 
That bubbles up in life's dry sands, 

And yet be careful what good thing 
We touch with sacrilegious hands. 

Our blessings should be sought, not claimed,- 
Cherished, not watched with jealous eye ; 

Love is too precious to be named, 
Save with a reverence deep and high. 

In all that lives, exists the power 
To avenge the invasion of its right ; 

"We cannot bruise and break our flower, 
And have our flower, alive and bright. 

Let us think less of what appears, — 
More of what is ; for this, hold I, 

It is the sentence no man hears 

That makes us live, or makes us die. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



245 



Trust hearsay less ; seek more to prove 
And know if tilings be what they seem ; 

Not sink supinely in some groove, 

And hope and hope, and dream and dream. 

Some days must needs be full of gloom, 
Yet must we use them as we may ; 

Talk less about the years to come, — 
Live, love, and labor more, to-day. 

What our hand findeth, do with might; 

Ask less for help, but stand or fall, 
Each one of us, in life's great fight, 

As if himself and God were all. 




246 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



ONE DUST. 

Thou, under Satan's fierce control, 
Shall Heaven its final rest bestow? 

I know not, but I know a soul 

That might have fallen as darkly low* 

I judge thee not, what depths of ill 
Soe'er thy feet have found, or trod; 

I know a spirit and a will 

As weak, but for the grace of God. 

Shalt thou with full-day laborers stand, 
Who hardly canst have pruned one vine f 

I know not, but I know a hand 
With an infirmity like thine. 

Shalt thou who hast with scoffers part, 

E'er wear the crown the Christian wears? 

I know not, but I know a heart 
As flinty, but for tears and prayers. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



247 



Have mercy, O Thou Crucified ! 

For even while I name Thy name, 
I know a tongue that might have lied 

Like Peter's, and am bowed with shame. 

Fighters of good fights, — just, unjust, — 
The weak who faint, the frail who fall, — 

Of one blood, of the self-same dust, 

Thou, God of love, hast made them all. 





THE WEAVER'S DEEAM. 

He sat all alone in his dark little room, 
His fingers aweary with work at the loom, 
His eyes seeing not the fine threads, for the tears, 
As he carefully counted the months and the years 
He had been a poor weaver. 

Not a traveller went on the dusty highway, 
But he thought, " He has nothing to do but be gay ; M 
No matter how burdened or bent he might be, 
The weaver believed him more happy than he, 
And sighed at his weaving. 

He saw not the roses so sweet and so red 

That looked through his wiridow ; he thought to be dead 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 249 

And carried away from his dark little room, 
Wrapt up in the linen he had in his loom, 
Were better than weaving. 

Just then a white angel came out of the skies, 
And shut up his senses, and sealed up his eyes, 
And bore him away from the work at his loom 
In a vision, and left him alone by the tomb 
Of his dear little daughter. 

"My darling!" he cries, "what a blessing was mine I , 
How I sinned, having you, against goodness divine ! 
Awake ! O my lost one, my sweet one, awake ! 
And I never, as long as I live, for your sake, 
Will sigh at my weaving ! " 

The sunset was gilding his low little room 
When the weaver awoke from his dream at the loom, 
And close at his knee saw a dear little head 
Alight with long curls, — she was living, not dead, — . 
His pride and his treasure. 

He winds the fine thread on his shuttle anew, 
(At thought of his blessing 't was easy to do,) 
And sings as he weaves, for the joy in his breast, 
Peace cometh of striving, and labor is rest : 
Grown w T ise was the weaver. 

32 



260 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



NOT NOW. 

The path of duty I clearly trace, 
I stand with conscience face to face, 

And all her pleas allow ; 
Calling and crying the while for grace, — 
" Some other time, and some other place : 

O, not to-day ; not now ! " 

I know 't is a demon boding ill, 

I know I have power to do if 1 will, 

And I put my hand to th' plough ; 
I have fair, sweet seeds in my barn, and lo f 
When all the furrows are ready to sow, 

The voice says, " O, not now ! " 

My peace I sell at the price of woe ; 
In heart and in spirit I suffer so, 

The anguish wrings my brow ; 
But still I linger and cry for grace, — 
" Some other time, and some other place : 

O, not to-day ; not now ! " 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 251 

I talk to my stubborn heart and say, 
The work I must do I will do to-day ; 

I will make to the Lord a vow : 
And I will not rest and I will not sleep 
Till the vow I have vowed I rise and keep ; 

And the demon cries, " Not now ! " 

And so the days and the years go by, 
And so I register he upon lie, 

And break w T ith Heaven my vow ; 
For when I would boldly take my stand, 
This terrible demon stays my hand, — 

" O, not to-day : not now ! " 




252 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



CRAGS. 

There was a good and reverend man 
Whose day of life, serene and bright, 

Was wearing hard upon the gloom 
Beyond which we can see no light. 

And as his vision back to morn, 
And forward to the evening sped, 

He bowed himself upon his staff, 

And with his heart communing, said : 

From mystery on to mystery 

My way has been ; yet as I near 

The eternal shore, against the sky 

These crags of truth stand sharp and clear. 

Where'er its hidden fountain be, 

Time is a many-colored jet 
Of good and evil, light and shade, 

And we evoke the things we get. 

The hues that our to-morrows wear 

Are by our yesterdays forecast; 
Our future takes into itself 

The true impression of our past. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 268 

The attrition of conflicting thoughts 

To clear conclusions, wears the groove ; 

The love that seems to die, dies not, 
But is absorbed in larger love. 

We cannot cramp ourselves, unharmed, 

In bonds of iron, nor of creeds ; 
The rights that rightfully belong 

To man, are measured by his needs. 

The daisy is entitled to 

The nurture of the dew and light 5 
The green house of the grasshopper 

Is his by Nature's sacred right. 




254 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



MAN. 



V 



In what a kingly fashion man doth dwell: 

He hath but to prefer 

His want, and Nature, like a servitor, 
Maketh him answer with some miracle. 

And yet his thoughts do keep along the ground, 

And neither leap nor run, 

Though capable to climb above the sun ; 
He seemeth free, and yet is strangely bound. 

What name would suit his case, or great or small ? 

Poor, but exceeding proud ; 

Importunate and still, humble and loud ; 
Most wise, and yet most ignorant, withal. 

The world that lieth in the golden air, 

Like a great emerald, 

Knoweth the law by which she is upheld, 
And in her motions keepeth steady there. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 2&5 

But in his foolishness proud man defies 

The law, wherewith is bound 

The peace he seeks, and fluttering moth-like round 
Some dangerous light, experimenting, dies. 

And all his subtle reasoning can obtain 

To tell his fortune by, 

Is only that he liveth and must die, 
And dieth in the hope to live again. 




256 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



Tu SOLITUDJb. 

I 4M weary of the working, 
Weary of the long day's heat ; 

To thy comfortable bosom, 

Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet ? 

Weary of the long, blind struggle 
For a pathway bright and high, — 

Weary of the dimly dying 

Hopes that never quite all die. 

Weary searching a bad cipher 
For a good that must be meant ; 

Discontent with being weary, — 
Weary with my discontent. 

I am weary of the trusting 

Where my trusts but torments prove ; 
Wilt thou keep faith with me ? wilt thou 

Be my true and tender love ? 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 257 

I am weary drifting, driving 

Like a helmless bark at sea ; 
Kindly, comfortable spirit, 

Wilt thou give thyself to me ? 

Give thy birds to sing me sonnets ? 

Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss ? 
And thy mossy rocks to stand for 

The memorials of our bliss ? 

I in reverence will hold thee, 

Never vexed with jealous ills, 
Though thy wild and wimpling waters 

Wind about a thousand hills. 



33 




258 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 



</ 



This extent hath freedom's ground,— 
In my freedom I am bound 
Never any soul to wound. 

Not my own : it is not mine, 

Lord, except to make it thine, 

By good works through grace divine. 

Not another's: Thou alone 
Keepest judgment for thine own ; 
Only unto Thee is known 

What to pity, what to blame ; 
How the fierce temptation came: 
What is honor, what is shame. 

Right is bound in this — to win 
Good till injury begin ; 
That, and only that, is sin. 

Selfish good may not befall 
Any man, or great or small ; 
Best for one is best for all. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 259 

And who vainly doth desire 
Good through evil to acquire, 
In his bosom taketh fire. 

"Wronging no man, Lord, nor Thee 
Vexing, I do pray to be 
In my soul, my body, free. 

Free to freely leave behind 
When the better things I find, 
Worser things, howe'er enshrined. 

So that pain may peace enhance, 

And through every change and chance, 

I upon myself, advance. 




260 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



MY CREED. 

I hold that Christian grace abounds 
Where charity is seen ; that when 

We climb to Heaven, 't is on the rounds 
Of love to men. 

I hold all else, named piety, 

A selfish scheme, a vain pretence ; 

Where centre is not — can there be 
Circumference ? 

This I moreover hold, and dare 

Affirm where'er my rhyme may go, — 

Whatever things be sweet or fair, 
Love makes them so. 

Whether it be the lullabies 

That charm to rest the nursling bird, 
Or that sweet confidence of sighs 

And blushes, made without a word. 

Whether the dazzling and the flush 
Of softly sumptuous garden bowers, 

Or by some cabin door, a bush 
Of ragged flowers. 



THOUGHTS AND THE CRIES. 



261 



'T is not the wide phylactery, 

Nor stubborn fast, nor stated prayers, 

That make us saints : we judge the tree 
By what it bears. 

And when a man can live apart 
From works, on theologic trust, 

I know the blood about his heart 
Is dry as dust. 




262 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES 



OPEN SECRETS. 

The truth lies round about us, all 
Too closely to be sought, — 

So open to our vision that 
'T is hidden to our thought. ' 

We know not what the glories 
Of the grass, the flower, may be ; 

We needs must struggle for the sight 
Of what we always see. 

Waiting for storms and whirlwinds, 
And to have a sign appear, 

We deem not God is speaking in 
The still small voice we hear. 

In reasoning proud, blind leaders of 
The blind, through life we go, 

And do not know the things we see, 
Nor see the things we know. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



263 



Single and indivisible, 

We pass from change to change, 
Familiar with the strangest things, 

And with familiar, strange. 

We make the light through which we see 
The light, and make the dark; 

To hear the lark sing, we must be 
At heaven's gate with the lark. 




264 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



the saddp:st SIGHT. 

As one that leadeth a blind man 

In a city, to and fro, 

Thought, even so, 
Leadeth me still wherever it will 

Through scenes of joy and woe. 

I have seen Lear, his white head crowned 

With poor straws, playing King ; 

And, wearying 
Her cheeks' young flowers "with true-love showers,' 

I have heard Ophelia sing. 

I have been in battles, and I have seen 

Stones at the martyrs hurled, — 

Seen th' flames curled 
Round foreheads bold, and lips whence rolled 

The litanies of the world. 

But of all sad sights that ever I saw, 

The saddest under the sun, 

Is a little one, 
Whose poor pale face was despoiled of grace 

Ere yet its life begun. 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 265 

No glimpse of the good green Nature 

To gladden with sweet surprise 

The staring eyes, 
That only have seen, close walls between, 

A hand-breadth of the skies. 

Ah, never a bird is heard to sing 

At the windows under ground, 

The long year round ; 
There, never the morn on her pipes of corn 

Maketh a cheerful sound. 

Oh, little white cloud of witnesses 

Against your parentage, 

May Heaven assuage 
The woes that wait on your dark estate, — 

Unorphaned orphanage. 



266 THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



THE BRIDAL HOUR. 

" The moon's gray tent is up : another hour, 
And yet another one will bring the time 

To which, through many cares and checks, so slowly, 
The golden day did climb. 

" Take all the books away, and let no noises 

Be in the house while softly I undress 
My soul from broideries of disguise, and wait for 

My own true love's caress. 

" The sweetest sound would tire to-night ; the dewdrops 
Setting the green ears in the corn and wheat, 

Would Hi ike a discord in the heart attuned to 
The bridegroom's coming feet. 

" Love ! blessed Love ! if we could hang our walls with 
The splendors of a thousand rosy Mays, 

Surely they would not shine so well as thou dost, 
Lighting our dusty days. 

" Without thee, what a dim and woful story 
Our years would be, oh, excellence sublime ! 

Slip of the life eternal, brightly growing 
In the low soil of time ! " 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES 267 



IDLE. 

I heard the gay spring coming, 
I saw the clover blooming, 

Red and white along the meadows, — 

Red and white along the streams ; 
I heard the bluebird singing, 
I saw the green grass springing, 

All as I lay a-dreaming, — 

A-dreaming idle dreams. 

I heard the ploughman's whistle, 
I saw the rough burr thistle 

In the sharp teeth of the harrow, — 

Saw the summer's yellow gleams 
In the walnuts, in the fennel, 
In the mulleins, lined with flannel, 

All as I lay a-dreaming, — 

A-dreaming idle dreams. 

I felt the warm, bright weather ; 

Saw the harvest, — saw them gather 
Corn and millet, wheat and apples, — 
Saw the gray barns with their seams 



288 



THOUGHTS AND THEORIES. 



Pressing wide, — the bare-armed shearers, « 
The ruddy water-bearers, — 

All as I lay a-dreaming, — 

A-dreaming idle dreams. 

The bluebird and her nestling 
Flew away ; the leaves fell rustling. 

The cold rain killed the roses, 

The sun withdrew his beams ; 
No creature cared about me, 
The world could do without me, 

AH as I lay a-dreaming, — 

A-dreaming idle dreams. 








J^mnsi, 




THE SURE WITNESS. 

The solemn wood had spread 

Shadows around my head, — 

44 Curtains they are," I said, 
14 Hung dim and still about the house of prayer ; " 

Softly among the limbs, 

Turning the leaves of hymns, 
I heard the winds, and asked if God were there. 
No voice replied, but while I listening stood, 
Sweet peace made holy hushes through the wood. 

With ruddy, open hand, 

I saw the wild rose stand 
Beside the green gate of the summer hills, 

And pulling at her dress, 

I cried, " Sweet hermitess, 
Hast thou beheld Him who the dew distils ? " 
No voice replied, but while I listening bent, 
Her gracious beauty made my heart content. 



272 HYMNS. 

The moon in splendor shone, — 

" She walketh Heaven alone, 
And seeth all things," to myself I mused ; 

" Hast thou beheld Him, then, 

Who hides himself from men 
In that great power through Nature interfused ? " 
No speech made answer, and no sign appeared, 
But in the silence I was soothed and cheered. 

Waking one time, strange awe 

Thrilling my soul, I saw 
A kingly splendor round about the night ; 

Such cunning work the hand 

Of spinner never planned, — 
The finest wool may not be washed so white. 
" Hast thou come out of Heaven ? " I asked ; and lo 
The snow was all the answer of the snow. 

Then my heart said, " Give o'er ; 

Question no more, no more ! 
The wind, the snow-storm, the wild hermit flower, 

The illuminated air, 

The pleasure after prayer, 
Proclaim the unoriginated Power ! 
The mystery that hides Him here and there, 
Bears the sure witness He is everywhere." 



HYMNS. 27? 



LOVE IS LIFE. 

Our days are few and full of strife ; 

Like leaves our pleasures fade and fall ; 

But Thou who art the all in all, 
Thy name is Love, and love is Life! 

We walk in sleep and think we see ; 
Our little lives are clothed with dreams r 
For that to us which substance seems 

Is shadow, 'twixt ourselves and Thee. 

We are immortal now, and here, 

Chances and changes, night and dav, 
Are landmarks in the eternal way ; 

Our fear is all we have to fear. 

Our lives are dew-drops in Thy sun ; 
Thou breakest them, and lo ! we see 
A thousand gracious shapes of Thee, — 

A thousand shapes, instead of one. 

The soul that drifts all darkly dim 

Through floods that seem outside of grace, 
Is only surging toward the place 

Which Thou hast made and meant for him. 
35 



274 HYMNS. 

For this we hold, — ill could not be 
Were there no power beyond the ill ; 
Our wills are held within Thy will ; 

The ends of goodness rest with Thee. 

Fall storms of winter as you may, 

The dry boughs in the warm spring rain 
Shall put their green leaves forth again, 

And surely we are more than they. 



~^*> s >&&m<8 2 *r— 



Thy works, O Lord, interpret Thee, 

And through them all Thy love is shown ; 

Flowing about us like a sea, 

Yet steadfast as the eternal throne. 

Out of the light that runneth through 
Thy hand, the lily's dress is spun ; 

Thine is the brightness of- the dew, 
And thine the glory of the sun. 



■■nmom 



HYMNS. 27fi 



TIME. u 

What is time, O, glorious Giver, 
With its restlessness and might, 

But a lost and wandering river 
Working back into the light? 

Every gloomy rock that troubles 
Its smooth passage, strikes to life 

Beautiful and joyous bubbles 

That are only born through strife. 

Overhung with mist-like shadows, 
Stretch its shores away, away, 

To the long, delightful meadows 
Shining with immortal May : 

Where its moaning reaches never, 
Passion, pain, or fear to move, 

And the changes bring us ever 
Sabbaths and new moons of love. 



276 HYMNS. 



CONSOLATION.^ 

friends, we are drawing nearer home 

As day by day goes by ; 
Nearer the fields of fadeless bloom, 

The joys that never die. 

Ye doubting souls, from doubt be free, — 
Ye mourners, mourn no more, 

For every wave of Death's dark sea 
Breaks on that blissful shore. 

God's ways are high above our ways, — 

So shall we learn at length, 
And tune our lives to sing His praise 

With all our mind, might, strength. 

About our devious paths of ill 

He sets His stern decrees, 
And works the wonders of His will 

Through pains and promises. 

Strange are the mysteries He employs, 

Yet we His love will trust, 
Though it should blight our dearest joys, 

And bruise us into dust. 



HYMNS. 277 



SUPPLICATION. ^ 

Thou, who all my life hast crowned 
With better things than I could ask, 
Be it to-day my humble task 

To own from depths of grief profound, 
The many sins, which darken through 
What little good I do. 

1 have been too much used, I own, 
To tell my needs in fretful words ; 

' The clamoring of the silly birds, 
Impatient till their wings be grown, 

Have Thy forgiveness. O, my blessed Lord, 
The like to me accord. 

Of grace, as much as will complete 

Thy will in me, I pray Thee for ; 

Even as a rose shut in a drawer 
That maketh all about it sweet, 

I would be, rather than the cedar fine : 

Help me, thou Power divine. 

With charity fill Thou my heart, 

As Summer fills the grass with dews, 



278 HYMNS. 

And as th' year itself renews 
In th' sun, when Winter days depart, 
Blessed forever, grant Thou me 
To be renewed in Thee. 



-— a-ree&to 2 *^- 



Why should our spirits be opprest 
When days of darkness fall ? 

Oui* Father knoweth what is best, 
And He hath made them all. 

He made them, and to all their length 

Set parallels of gain ; 
Wc gather from our pain the strength 

To rise above our pain. 

All, all beneath the shining sun 

Is vanity and dust ; 
Help us, O high and holy One, 

To fix in Thee our trust ; 

And in the change, and interfuse 
Of change, with every hour, 

To recognize the shifting hues 
Of never-changing Power. 



HYMNS. 279 



WHITHER. 

All the time my soul is calling, 
" Whither, whither do I go ? " 

For my days like leaves are falling 
From my tree of life below. 

Who will come and be my lover ! 

Who is strong enough to save, 
When that I am leaning over 

The dark silence of the grave ? 

Wherefore should my soul be calling. 

" Whither, whither do I go ? " 
For my days like leaves are falling 

In the hand of God, I know. 

As the seasons touch their ending, 
As the dim years fade and flee, 

Let me rather still be sending 
Some good deed to plead for me. 

Then, though none should stay to weep me, 

Lover-like, within the shade, 
He will hold me, He will keep me, 

And I will not be afraid. 



280 HYMNS. 



SURE ANCHOR. 

Out of the heavens come down to me, 
O Lord, and hear my earnest prayer 

On life above the life I see 

Fix Thou my soul, and keep it there. 

The richest joys of earth are poor ; 

The fairest forms are all unfair ; 
On what is peaceable and pure 

Set Thou my heart, and keep it there. 

Pride builds her house upon the sand ; 

Ambition treads the spider's stair ; 
On whatsoever things will stand 

Set Thou my feet, and keep them there. 

The past is vanished in the past ; 

The future doth a shadow wear ; 
On whatsoever things are fast 

Fix Thou mine eyes, and keep them there. 



HYMNS. 281 

In spite of slander's tongue, in spite 

Of burdens grievous hard to bear, 
To whatsoever things are right 

Set Thou my hand, and keep it there. 

Life is a little troubled breath, 

Love but another name for care ; 
Lord, anchor Thou my hope and faith 

In things eternal, — only there. 



36 




282 HYMNS. 



REMEMBER. 

In thy time, and times of mourning, 
When grief doeth all she can 

To hide the prosperous sunshine, 
Remember this, O man, — 

" He setteth an end to darkness." 

Sad saint, of the world forgotten, 
Who workest thy work apart, 

Take thou this promise for comfort, 
And hold it in thy heart, — 

44 He searcheth out all perfection " 

O foolish and faithless sailor, 
When the ship is driven away, 

When the waves forget their places, 
And the anchor will not stay, — 

44 He weigheth the waters by measure." 

O outcast, homeless, bewildered, 
Let now thy murmurs be still, 

Go in at the gates of gladness 
And eat of the feast at will, — 

44 For wisdom is better than riches." 






HYMNS. 



288 



diligent, diligent sower, 

Who sowest thy seed in vain, 

When the corn in the ear is withered, 
And the young flax dies for rain, — 

" Through rocks He cutteth out rivers " 




284 HYMNS. 



LYRIC. 

Thou givest, Lord, to Nature law, 

And she in turn doth give 
Her poorest flower a right to draw 

Whate'er she needs to live. 

The dews upon her forehead fall, 

The sunbeams round her lean, 
And dress her humble form with all 

The glory of a queen. 

In thickets wild, in woodland bowers, 

By waysides, everywhere, 
The plainest flower of all the flowers 

Is shining with Thy care. 

And shall I through my fear and doubt 

Be less than one of these, 
And come from seeking Thee without 

Thy blessed influences? 

Thou who hast crowned my life with powers 

So large, — so high above 
The fairest flower of all the flowers, 

Forbid it by Thy love. 



HYMNS. 285 



SUNDAY MORNING. 

O day to sweet religious thought 

So wisely set apart, 
Back to the silent strength of life 

Help thou my wavering heart. 

Nor let the obtrusive lies of sense 

My meditations draw 
From the composed, majestic realm 

Of everlasting law. 

Break down whatever hindering shapes 

I see, or seem to see, 
And make my soul acquainted with 

Celestial company. 

Beyond the wintry w r aste of death 
Shine fields of heavenly light ; 

Let not this incident of time 
Absorb me from their sight. 



286 HYMNS. 

I know these outward forms wherein 
So much my hopes I stay, 

Are but the shadowy hints of that 
Which cannot pass away. 

That just outside the work-day path 
By man's volition trod, 

Lie the resistless issues of 
The things ordained of God, 







HYMNS. 287 



IN THE DARK. 

Out of the earthly years we live 
How small a profit springs ; 

I cannot think but life should give 
Higher and better things. 

The very ground whereon we tread 
Is clothed to please our sight ; 

I cannot think that we have read 
Our dusty lesson right. 

So little comfort we receive, 
Except through what we see, 

I cannot think we half believe 
Our immortality. 

We disallow and trample so 
The rights of poor, weak men, 

I cannot think we feel and know 
They are our brethren. 

So rarely our affections move 
. Without a selfish guard, 
I cannot think we know that love 
Is all of love's reward. 



288 HYMNS. 

To him who smites, the cheek is turned 
With such a slow consent, 

1 cannot think that we have learned 
The holy Testament. 

Blind, ignorant, we grope along 

A path misunderstood, 
Mingling with folly and with wrong 

Some providential good. 

Striving with vain and idle strife 

In outward shows to live, 
We famish, knowing not that life 

Has better things to give. 







HYMNS. 289 



PARTING SONG. 

The long day is closing, 
Ah, why should you weep ? 

'T is thus that God gives 
His beloved ones sleep. 

I see the wide water 

So deep and so black, — 
Love waits me beyond it, — 

I would not go back ! 

I would not go back 

Where its joys scarce may gleam, - 
Where even in dreaming 

We know that we dream; 

For though life filled for me 

All measures of bliss, 
Has it anything better 

Or sweeter than this ? 

I would not go back 

To the torment of fear, — 

To the wastes of uncomfort 
When home is so near. 

37 



290 



HYMNS. 



Each night is a prison-bar 
Broken and gone, — 

Each morning a golden gate, 
On, — farther on ! 

On, on toward the citv 
So shining and fair ; 

And He that hath loved me- 
Died for me — is there. 




1 



ZYMJVS. 291 




MOURN NOT. 

O mourner, mourn not vanished light, 
But fix your fearful hopes above ; 

The watcher, through the long, dark night, 
Shall see the daybreak of God's love. 

A land all green and bright and fair, 
Lies just beyond this vale of tears, 

And we shall meet, immortal there, 
The pleasures of our mortal years. 

He who to death has doomed our race, 
With steadfast faith our souls has armed, 

And made us children of His grace 
To go into the grave, unharmed. 

The storm may beat, the night may close, 
The face may change, the blood run chill, 

But His great love no limit knows, 
And therefore we should fear no ill. 



292 HYMNS. 

Dust as we are, and steeped in guilt, 

How strange, how wondrous, how divine, 

That He hath for us mansions built, 
Where everlasting splendors shine. 

Our days with beauty let us trim, 

As Nature trims with flowers the sod ; 

Giving the glory all to Him, — 

Our Friend, our Father, and our God. 







HYMNS. 2M 



THE HEAVEN THAT'S HERE. 

My God, I feel Thy wondrous might 

In Nature's various shows, — 
The whirlwind's breath, — the tender light 

Of the rejoicing rose. 

For doth not that same power enfol 

Whatever things are new, 
Which shone about the saints of old 

And struck the seas in two ? 

Ashamed, I veil my fearful eyes 
From this, Thy earthly reign ; 

What shall I do when I arise 
From death, but die again ! 

What shall I do but prostrate fall 

Before the splendor there, 
That here, so dazzles me through all 

The dusty robes I wear. 

Life's outward and material laws, — 
Love, sunshine, all things bright,— 

Are curtains which Thy mercy draws 
To shield us from that light. 



294 



HYMNS. 



I falter when I try to seek 

The world which these conceal ; 

I stammer when I fain would speak 
The reverence that I* feel. 

I dare not pray to Thee to give 
That heaven which shall appear ; 

My cry is, Help me, Thou, to live 
Within the heaven that 's here. 







HYMNS. 295 



THE STREAM OF LIFE. 

The stream of life is going dry ; 

Thank God, that more and more 
1 see the golden sands, which I 

Could never see before. 

The banks are dark with graves of friends ; 

Thank God, for faith sublime 
In the eternity that sends 

Its shadows into time. 

The flowers are gone that with their glow 

Of sunshine filled the grass ; 
Thank God, they were but dim and low 

Reflections in a glass. 

The autumn winds are blowing chill ; 

The summer warmth is done ; 
Thank God, the little dew-drop still 

Is drawn into the sun. 

Strange stream, to be exhaled so fast 

In cloudy cares and tears ; 
Thank God, that it should shine at last 

Along the immortal years. 



296 HYMNS. 



DEAD AND ALIVE. 

Till I learned to love Thy name, 

Lord, Thy grace denying, 
I was lost in sin and shame, 

D y in g> d y in g> d y in g ! 

Nothing could the world impart ; 

Darkness held no morrow ; 
In my soul and in my heart 

Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow ! 

AH the blossoms came to blight ; 

Noon was dull and dreary ; 
Night and day, and day and night, 

Weary, weary, weary! 

When I learned to love Thy name, 
Peace beyond all measure 

Came, and in the stead of shame, 
Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure ! 



HYMNS. 



2y: 



Winds may beat, and storms may fall, 
Thou, the meek and lowly, 

Reignest, and I sing through all, — 
Holy, holy, holy! 

Life may henceforth never be 

Like a dismal story, 
For beyond its bound I see 

Glory, glory, glory ! 



38 




29H HYMNS. 



INVOCATION. 

Come down to us, help and heal us, 
Thou that once life's pathway trod, 

Knowing all its gloom and glory, — 
Son of man, and Son of God. 

Come down to us, help and heal us, 
When our hopes before us flee ; 

Thou hast been a man of sorrows, 
Tried and tempted, even as we. 

By the weakness of our nature, 
By the burdens of our care, 

Steady up our fainting courage, — 
Save, O save us from despair! 

By the still and strong temptation 
Of consenting hearts within ; 

By the power of outward evil, 
Save, O save us from our sin ! 

By the infirm and bowed together, — 
By the demons far and near, — 

By all sick and sad possessions, 
Save, O save us from our fear ! 






HYMNS. 



aua" 



From the dim and dreary doubting 
That with faith a warfare make, 

Save us, through Thy sweet compassion, - 
Save us, for Thy own name's sake. 

And when all of life is finished 
To the last low fainting breath, 

Meet us in the awful shadows, 
And deliver us from death. 




WO HYMNS. 



LIFE OF LIFE. 

To Him who is the Life of life, 
My soul its vows would pay; 

He leads the flowery seasons on, 
And gives the storm its way. 

The winds run backward to their caves 

At His divine command, — 
And the great deep He folds within 

The hollow of His hand. 

He clothes the grass, He makes the rose 

To wear her good attire ; 
The moon He gives her patient grace, 

And all the stars their fire. 

He hears the hungry raven's cry, 
And seeds her young their food, 

And through our evil intimates 
His purposes of good. 



HYMNS. 



301 



He stretches out the north, He binds 

The tempest in His care ; 
The mountains cannot strike their rcots 

So deep He is not there. 

Hid in the garment of His works, 

We feel His presence still 
With us, and through us fashioning 

The mystery of His will. 




i 



302 HYMNS. 



MERCIES. 

Lest the great glory from on high 
Should make our senses swim, 

Our blessed Lord hath spread the sky 
Between ourselves and Him. 

He made the Sabbath shine before 
The work-days and the care, , 

And set about its golden door 
The messengers of prayer. 

Across our earthly pleasures fled 
He sends His heavenly light, 

Like morning streaming broad and red 
Adown the skirts of night. 



*&* 



He nearest comes when most His face 
Is wrapt in clouds of gloom ; 

The firmest pillars of His grace 
Are planted in the tomb. 

Oh shall we not the power of sin 

And vanity withstand, 
When thus our Father holds us in 

The hollow of His hand? 



HYMNS. 303 



PLEASURE AND PAIN. 

Pleasure and pain walk hand in hand, 

Each is the other's poise ; 
The borders of the silent land 

Are full of troubled noise. 

While harvests yellow as the day 

In plenteous billows roll, 
Men go about in blank dismay, 

Hungry of heart and soul. 

Like chance-sown weeds they grow, and drift 

On to the drowning main; 
Oh, for a lever that would lift 

Thought to a higher plane I 

Sin is destructive : he is dead 

Whose soul is lost to truth ; 
While Virtue makes the hoary head 

Bright with eternal youth. 

There is a courage that partakes 

Of cowardice ; a high 
And honest-hearted fear that makes 

The man afraid to lie. 






304 HYMNS. 

When no low thoughts of self intrude, 

Angels adjust our rights ; 
And love that seeks its selfish good 

Dies in its own delights. 

How much we take, — how little give, — 

Yet every life is meant 
To help all lives; each man should live 

For all men's betterment. 







HYMNS. , 305 



MYSTERIES. 

Clouds, with a little light between ; 

Pain, passion, fear, and doubt, — 
What voice shall tell me what they mean ? 

I cannot find them out! 

Hopeless my task is, to begin, 

Who fail with all my power, 
To read the crimson lettering in 

The modest meadow flower. 

Death, with shut eyes and icy cheek, 

Bearing that bitter cup ; 
Oh, who is wise enough to speak, 

And break its silence up ! 

Or read the evil writing on 

The wall of good, for, oh, 
The more my reason shines upon 

Its lines, the less I know: 

Or show how dust becomes a rose, 

And what it is above 
All mysteries that doth compose 

Discordance into Love. 
39 



306 



HYMNS. 



I only know that Wisdom planned, 

And that it is my part 
To trust, who cannot understand 

The beating of my neart. 




HYMNS. 



mi 



. LYRIC. 

Thou givest, Lord, to Nature law, 

And she in turn doth give 
Her poorest flower a right to draw 

Whate'er she needs to live. 

The dews upon her forehead fall, 
The sunbeams round her lean, 

And dress her humble form with all 
The glory of a queen. 

In thickets wild, in woodland bowers, 

By waysides, everywhej-e, 
The plainest flower of all the flowers 

Is shining with Thy care. 

And shall I, through my fear and doubt, 

Be less than one of these, 
And come from seeking Thee without 

Thy blessed influences ? 



Thou who hast crowned my life with powers 

So large, — so high above 
The fairest flower of all the flowers, — 

Forbid it by Thy love. 



30b HYMNS. 



TRUST. 

Away with all life's memories, 

Away with hopes, away ! 
Lord, take me up into Thy love, 

And keep me there to-day, 

I cannot trust to mortal eyes 

My weakness and my sin ; 
Temptations He alone can judge, 

Who knows what they have been. 

But I can trust Him who provides 
The thirsty ground with dew, 

And round the wounded beetle builds 
His grassy house anew. 

For the same hand that smites with pain, 

And sends the wintry snows, 
Doth mould the frozen clod again 

Into the summer rose. 

My soul is melted by that love, 

So. tender and so true ; 
I can but cry, My Lord and God, 

What wilt Thou have me do ? 



HYMNS. 



309 



My blessings all come back to me, 
And round about me stand ; 

Help me to climb their dizzy stairs 
Until I touch Thy hand. 




810 HYMNS! 



ALL IN ALL. 

Aweary, wounded unto death, — 

Unfavored of men's eyes, 
I have a house not made with hands, 

Eternal, in the skies. 

A house where but the steps of faith 
Through the white light have trod, 

Steadfast among the mansions of 
The City of our God. 

There never shall the sun go down 

From the lamenting day ; 
There storms shall never rise to beat 

The light of love away. 

There living streams through deathless flowers 

Are* flowing free and wide ; 
There souls that thirsted here below 

Drink, and are satisfied. 

I know my longing shall be filled 

When this weak, wasting clay 
Is folded like a garment from 

My soul, and laid away. 






HYMNS. 



311 



I know it by th' immortal hopes 
That wrestle down my fear, — 

By all the awful mysteries 

That hide heaven from us here. 



Oh, what a blissful heritage 

On such as I to fall ; 
Possessed of Thee, my Lord and God. 

I am possessed of all. 




812 HYMNS. 



THE PURE IN HEART. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 

I asked the angels in my prayer, 
With bitter tears and pains, 

To show mine eyes the kingdom where 
The Lord of glory reigns. 

I said, My way with doubt is dim, 
My heart is sick with fear ; 

Oh come, and help me build to Him 
A tabernacle here ! 

The storms of sorrow wildly beat, 
The clouds with death are chill ; 

I long to hear His voice so sweet, 
Who whispered, " Peace ; be still ! " 

The angels said, God giveth you 
His love, — what more is ours ? 

And even as the gentle dew 
Descends upon the flowers, 



HYMNS. 313 

His grace descends ; and, as of old, 

He walks with man apart, 
Keeping the promise, as foretold, 

With all the pure in heart. 

Thou needst not ask the angels where 

His habitations be ; 
Keep thou thy spirit clean and fair. 

And He shall dwell with thee. 



iO 




314 HYMNS. 



UNSATISFIED. 

Come out from heaven, O Lord, and be my guide, — 

Come, I implore ; 
To my dark questionings unsatisfied, 

Leave me no more, — 

No more, O Lord, no more ! 

Forgetting how my nights and how my days 

Run sweetly by, — 
Forgetting that Thy ways above our ways 

Are all so high, — 

I cry, and ever cry — 

Since that Thou leavest not the wildest glen, 

For flowers to wait, 
How leavest Thou the hearts of living men 

So desolate, — 

So darkly desolate? 

Thou keepest safe beneath the wintry snow 

The little seed, 
And leavest under all its weights of woe, 

The heart to bleed, 

And vainly, vainly plead. 






HYMNS. 315 

In the dry root Thou stirrest up the sap; 

At Thy commands 
Cometh the rain, and all the bushes clap 

Their rosy hands : 

Man only, thirsting, stands. 

Is it for envy, or from wrath that springs 

• From foolish pride, 
Thou leavest him to his dark questionings 

Unsatisfied, — 

Always unsatisfied? 




316 HYMNS. 



MORE LIFE. 

When spring-time prospers in the grass, 
And fills the vales with tender bloom, 

And light winds whisper as they pass 
Of sunnier days to come ; 

In spite of all the joy she brings 

To flood and field, to hill and grove, 

This is the song my spirit sings, — 
More light, more life, more love! 

And when, her time fulfilled, she goes 
So gently from her vernal place, 

And all the outstretched landscape glows 
With sober summer grace ; 

When on the stalk the ear is set, 
With all the harvest promise bright, 

My spirit sings the old song yet, — 
More love, more life, more light! 






HYMNS. 



817 



When stubble takes the place of grain, 
And shrunken streams steal slow along, 

And all the faded woods complain 
Like one who suffers wrong; 

When fires are lit, and everywhere 
The pleasures of the household rife, 

]J4y song is solemnized to prayer, — 
More love, more light, more life ! 




818 HYMNS 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 

Darkness, blind darkness every way, 

With low illuminings of light ; 
Hints, intimations of the day 

That never breaks to full, clear light. 

High longing for a larger light 
Urges us onward o'er life's hill ; 

Low fear of darkness and of night 
Presses us back and holds us still. 

So while to Hope we give one hand, 
The other hand to Fear we lend; 

And thus 'twixt high and low we stand, 
Waiting and wavering to the end. 

Eager for some ungotten good, 

We mind the false and miss the true ; 

Leaving undone the things we would, 
We do the things we would not do. 

For ill in good and good in ill, 

The verity, the thing that seems, — 

They run into«£ach other still, 

Like dreams in truth, like truth in dreams. 



HVJdNS. 



319 



Seeing the world with sin imbued, 
We trust that in the eternal plan 

Some little drop of brightest blood 

Runs through the darkest heart of man. 

Living afar from what is near, 

Uplooking while we downward tend; 

In light and shadow, hope and fear, 
We sin and suffer to the end. 




320 



UYMN& 



SUBSTANCE. 

Each fearful storm that o'er us rolls, 

Each path of peril trod, 
Is but a means whereby our souls 

Acquaint themselves with God. 

Our want and weakness, shame and sin, 

His pitying kindness prove; 
And all our lives are folded in 

The mystery of His love. 

The grassy land, the flowering trees, 
The waters, wild and dim, — 

These are the cloud of witnesses 
That testify of Him. 



His sun is shining, sure and fast, 
O'er all our nights of dread ; 

Our darkness by His light, at last 
Shall be interpreted. 



HFMNS. 



321 



No promise shall He fail to keep 

Until we see His face ; 
E'en death is but a tender sleep 

In the eternal race. 

Time's empty shadow cheats our eyes, 
But all the heavens declare 

The substance of the things w^e prize 
Is there, and only there. 



U 




322 HYMNS. 



LIFE'S MYSTEE 1 . 

Life's sadly solemn mystery 
Hangs o'er me like a weight; 

The glorious longing to be free, 
The gloomy bars of fate. 

Alternately the good and ill, 

The light and dark, are strung j 

Fountains of love within my heart, 
And hate upon my tongue. 

Beneath my feet the unstable ground, 
Above my head the skies ; 

Immortal longings in my soul, 
And death before my eyes. 

No purely pure, and perfect good, 
No high, unhindered power ; 

A beauteous promise in the bud, 
And mildew on the flower. 



HYMNS. 



32? 



The glad, green brightness of the spring ; 

The summer, soft and warm; 
The faded autumn's fluttering gold, 

The whirlwind and the storm. 

To find some sure interpreter 

My spirit vainly tries ; 
I only know that God is love, 

And know that love is wise. 




324 



HYMNS 



FOR SELF-HELP. 

Master, I do not ask that Thou 

With milk and wine my table spread, 

So much, as for the will to plough 

And sow my fields, and earn my bread ; 

Lest at Thy coming I be found 

A useless cumberer of the ground. 

I do not ask that Thou wilt bless 
With gifts of heavenly sort my day, 

So much, as that my hands may dress 
The borders of my lowly way 

With constant deeds of good and right, 

Thereby reflecting heavenly light. 



I do not ask that Thou shouldst lift 
My feet to mountain-heights sublime, 

So much, as for the heavenly gift 

Of strength, with which myself may climb, 

Making the power Thou madest mine 

For using, by that use, divine. 



HYMNS. 



325 



I do not ask that there may flow 
Glory about me from the skies ; 

The knowledge that doth knowledge know ; 
The wisdom that is not too wise 

To see in all things good and fair, 

Thy love attested, is my prayer. 




826 HYMNS. 



DYING HYMN. 

Earth, with its dark and dreadful ills, 

Recedes, and fades away ; 
Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills ; 

Ye gates of death, give way ! 

My soul is fiill of whispered song ; 

My blindness is my sight ; 
The shadows that I feared so long 

Are all alive with light. 

The while my pulses faintly beat, 

My faith doth so abound, 
I feel grow firm beneath my feet 

The green immortal ground. 

That faith to me a courage gives, 

Low as the grave, to go ; 
I know that my Redeemer lives : 

That I shall live, I know. 

The palace walls I almost see, 

Where dwells my Lord and King ; 

O grave, where is thy victory ! 
O death, where is thy sting ! 



HYMNS. 327 



EXTREMITIES. 

When the mildew's blight we see 
Over all the harvest spread, 

Humbly, Lord, we cry to Thee, 
Give, give us, daily bread ! 

But the full and plenteous ears 

Many a time we reap with tears. 

When the whirlwind rocks the land, 
When the gathering clouds alarm, 

Lord, within Thy sheltering hand, 
Hide, O hide us from the storm ! 

So with trembling souls we cry, 

Till the cloud and noise pass by. 

When our pleasures fade away, 
When our hopes delusive prove, 

Prostrate at Thy feet we pray, 

Shield, O shield us with Thy love ! 

But, our anxious plea allowed, 

We grow petulant and proud. 



328 



HYMNS. 



When life's little day turns dull, 
When the avenonno; shades bcpin, 

Save us, Most Merciful, 

Save us, save us from our sin ! 

So, the last dread foe being near, 

We entreat Thee, through our fear. 

Ere the dark our light efface, 
Ere our pleasure fleeth far, 

Make us worthier of Thy grace, 
Stubborn rebels that we are ; 

While our good days round us shine, 

O our Father, make us Thine. 




HYMNS. 32& 



HERE AND THERE. 

Here is the sorrow, the sighing, 
Here are the cloud and the night ; 

Here is the sickness, the dying, 
There are the life and the light ! 

Here is the fading, the wasting, 
The foe that so watchfully waits -, 

There are the hills everlasting, 
The city with beautiful gates. 

Here are the locks growing hoary, 
The glass with the vanishing sands : 

There are the crown and the glory, 

The house that is made not with hands, 

Here is the longing, the vision, 
The hopes that so swiftly remove ; 

There is the blessed fruition, 

The feast, and the fulness of love. 

Here are the heart-strings a-tremble, 
And here is the chastening rod ; 

There is the song and the cymbal, 
And there is our Father and God. 
42 



#3Q HYMNS. 



THE DAWN OF PEACE. 

After the cloud and the whirlwind, 
After the long, dark night, 

After the dull, slow marches, 
And the thick, tumultuous fight, 

Thank God, we see the lifting 
Of the golden, glorious light ! 

After the sorrowful partings, 

After the sickening fear, 
And after the bitter sealing 

With blood, of year to year, 
Thank God, the light is breaking ; 

Thank God, the day is here ! 

The land is filled with mourning 
For husbands and brothers slain, 

But a hymn of glad thanksgiving 
Rises over the pain ; 

Thank God, our gallant soldiers 
Have not gone down in vain ! 



FIYMNS. 331 

The cloud is spent ; the whirlwind 

That vexed the night is past ; 
And the day whose blessed dawning 

We see, shall surely last, 
Till all the broken fetters 

To ploughshares shall be cast ! 

When over the field of battle 

The grass grows green, and when 

The Spirit of Peace shall have planted 
Her olives once again, 

Oh, how the hosts of the people 
Shall cry, Amen, Amen ! 




3?2 HYillAS. 



OCCASIONAL. 

Our mightiest in our midst is slain ; 

The mourners weep around, 
Broken and bowed with bitter pain, 

And bleeding through his wound. 

Prostrate, o'erwhelmed, with anguish torn, 

We cry, great God, for aid ; 
Night fell upon us, even at morn, 

And we are sore afraid. 

Afraid of our infirmities, 

In this, our woful woe, — 
Afraid to breast the bloody seas 

That hard against U s flow. 



The sword we sheathed, our enemy 
Has bared, and struck us through ; 

And heart, and soul, and spirit cry, 
What wilt Thou have us do ! 



HYMNS. 



333 



Be with our country in this grief 

That lies across her path, 
Lest that she mourn her martyred chief 

With an unrighteous wrath. 

Give her that steadfast faith and trust 
That look through all, to Thee ; 

And in her mercy keep her just, 
And through her justice, free. 



THE END. 




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